THE    ATHENy^UM    PRESS    SERIES 

G.  L.  KITTREDGE   AND   C.  T.  WINCHESTER 
GENERAL    EDITORS 


Cbe 
Itbenazum  press  Series. 

This  series  is  intended  to  furnish  a 
library  of  the  best  English  literature 
from  Chaucer  to  the  present  time  in  a 
form  adapted  to  the  needs  of  both  the 
student  and  the  general  reader.  The 
works  selected  are  carefully  edited,  with 
biographical  and  critical  introductions, 
full  explanatory  notes,  and  other  neces- 
sary apparatus. 


FRANCIS   JEFFREY. 


SELECTIONS 


FROM  THE 


ESSAYS    OF    FRANCIS    JEFFREY 


EDITED 

WITH  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES 
BY 

LEWIS   E.  GATES 

INSTRUCTOR    IN    ENGLISH    IN    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON,  U.S.A. 

GINN   &   COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS 
1894 


COPYRIGHT,  1894, 
BY  LEWIS    E.  GATES. 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED. 


PREFACE. 


THE  following  Selections  from  Jeffrey's  Essays  have  a 
three-fold  purpose  :  first,  to  illustrate  Jeffrey's  style  and 
methods  as  a  critic  and  his  most  characteristic  opinions  ; 
secondly,  to  give  examples  of  what  was  in  its  day  deemed 
the  best  literary  criticism,  with  a  view  to  suggesting  the 
changes  in  methods  and  aims  that  have  since  been 
wrought ;  thirdly,  to  bring  together  elementary  discus- 
sions of  a  few  terms  and  topics  in  literature  which 
students  are  always  supposed  to  be  familiar  with,  but 
which  they  can  hardly  find  treated  in  ordinary  manuals 
or  reference-books.  With  these  aims  in  mind  it  has 
seemed  best  to  limit  the  Selections  to  essays  on  literature. 
This  limitation  ensures  unity,  and  the  resulting  volume 
may  well  be  used  by  classes  that  are  beginning  the  inde- 
pendent study  of  literary  topics  and  of  methods  of 
criticism. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  limitation  prevents  the  Selec- 
tions from  doing  justice  to  Jeffrey's  versatility,  and  from 
illustrating  satisfactorily  certain  points  on  which  much 
stress  is  laid  in  the  Introduction,  —  the  range  of  the 
Edinburgh  essays,  and  their  courage  and  vigor  in  the 
treatment  of  religious,  social,  and  political  questions. 
The  reader  who  wishes  illustrations  of  these  points, 
must  consult  Jeffrey's  four  volumes  of  Contributions 


iv  PREFACE, 

to  the  Edinburgh  Review,  or  turn  to  the  files  of  the 
periodical. 

The  text  of  the  Selections  is  entire  as  far  as  it  goes, 
except  in  five  essays,  where  omissions  are  marked  by 
stars ;  but  every  Selection  ends,  when  Jeffrey  turns  from 
his  discussion  of  general  questions,  and  begins  to  deal 
specifically  with  the  book  before  him  by  means  of  sum- 
maries and  extracts.  It  has  not  been  thought  worth 
while  to  mark  this  form  of  incompleteness  with  stars. 

The  best  short  sketch  of  Jeffrey's  life  is  that  of  Mr. 
Leslie  Stephen  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography ; 
the  standard  biography  is  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  and  Cor- 
respondence of  Lord  Jeffrey,  in  two  volumes. 

The  text  of  the  Selections,  including  punctuation  and 
spelling,  is  precisely  that  of  the  London  edition  of  1844, 
save  for  the  correction  of  a  few  obvious  and  trifling 
misprints. 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY. 
December  26,  1893. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vii 

I.   JEFFREY'S  FAME vii 

II.   JEFFREY  THE  CRITIC x 

III.  THE  EDINBURGH  REVIEW xxx 

IV.  THE  EARLIER  REVIEWS xxxiv 

V.   THE  NEW  LITERARY  FORM xl 

SELECTIONS  FROM  JEFFREY'S  ESSAYS i 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  ESSAYS 183 

DATES  IN  JEFFREY'S  LIFE  184 

ENGLISH  REVIEWS 185 

NOTES 187 


INTRODUCTION. 


I. 

DURING  the  thirty  years  after  his  death  Francis  Jeffrey 
was  remembered  in  literature  with  very  little  honor. 
Those  of  his  essays  that  were  most  often  recalled  were 
his  attacks  on  the  Lake  poets  ;  and  as  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge  had  ultimately  persuaded  the  public,  or  the 
larger  part  of  it,  to  take  their  poetry  at  their  own  valua- 
tion, Jeffrey's  reputation  as  a  critic  suffered  proportionally. 

Of  late  years,  however,  two  sets  of  causes  have  been 
tending  to  gain  for  Jeffrey  a  second  hearing  and  to  secure 
for  him  a  fair  recognition.  In  the  first  place,  the  mystical 
view  of  life,  which  he  found  so  offensive  in  Wordsworth 
and  attacked  so  relentlessly,  has  been  more  and  more 
falling  into  disfavor,  and  giving  place  to  a  positive  and 
scientific  habit  of  thought.  The  positivism  of  to-day  is 
not  Jeffrey's  positivism,  and  our  insensibility  to  Words- 
worth is  not  Jeffrey's  insensibility  ;  and  yet  the  temper 
of  our  time  is  perhaps  nearer  like  Jeffrey's  than  like 
Wordsworth's  ;  and  Jeffrey's  frank,  comprehensible  blun- 
ders are  nearer  tolerable  to  a  latter-day,  prose-loving 
public  than  are  the  extravagances  and  cloudy  mysticism 
of  much  of  the  poetry  he  assails. 

Then,  in  the  second  place,  the  mere  passage  of  time 
has  been  in  Jeffrey's  favor  ;  the  historical  point  of  view 
has  largely  replaced  the  partisan  point  of  view  in  dis- 
cussions of  the  early  literature  of  the  century,  and  a 


Vlll  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

scientific  recognition  of  Jeffrey's  former  prestige  has 
replaced  an  impatient  dislike  of  his  critical  opinions. 
Questions  of  cause  and  effect,  of  action  and  reaction,  of 
movements  and  tendencies,  have  more  and  more  come 
to  the  front ;  and  for  a  student  of  problems  of  this  kind 
Jeffrey  is  not  a  quantity  that  can  be  neglected. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  glance  through  the  life  of  any 
literary  man  of  the  early  part  of  the  century  without 
chancing  on  evidence  of  Jeffrey's  popularity  and  prestige. 
Macaulay,  for  example,  was  a -devoted  admirer  of  Jeffrey. 
One  of  his  letters  of  1828  deals  wholly  with  his  impressions 
of  Jeffrey,  at  whose  home  he  had  just  been  staying  ;  the 
tone  of  the  letter  is  that  of  unmixed  hero-worship  ;  no 
details  of  the  Scotch  critic's  appearance  or  habits  or 
opinions  are  too  slight  to  be  sent  to  the  Macaulay 
household  in  London.  "  He  has  twenty  faces  almost  as 
unlike  each  other  as  my  father's  to  Mr.  Wilberforce's." 
.  .  .  "The  mere  outfine  of  his  face  is  insignificant. 
The  expression  is  everything  ;  and  such  power  and 
variety  of  expression  I  never  saw  in  any  human  coun- 
tenance." ...  "  The  flow  of  his  kindness  is  quite 
inexhaustible."  ...  "  His  conversation  is  very  much 
like  his  countenance  and  his  voice,  of  immense  variety." 
...  "  He  is  a  shrewd  observer ;  and  so  fastidious 
that  I  am  not  surprised  at  the  awe  in  which  many 
people  seem  to  stand  when  in  his  company."  ]  These 
are  only  a  few  of  Macaulay's  details  and  admiring 
comments.  Nor  did  Macaulay  outgrow  this  intense 
admiration.  In  April,  1843,  ne  writes  Macvey  Napier 
that  he  has  read  and  reread  Jeffrey's  old  articles  till  he 
knows  them  by  heart  ; 2  and  in  December,  1843,  on  the 
appearance  of  Jeffrey's  collected  essays,  he  expresses 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,  chap.  3. 
'2  Ibid.,  chap.  9. 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

himself  in  almost  unmeasured  terms  :  "  The  variety  and 
versatility  of  Jeffrey's  mind  seems  to  me  more  extraordi- 
nary than  ever.  ...  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  man 
except  Jeffrey,  nay  that  any  three  men,  could  have 
produced  such  diversified  excellence.  .  .  .  Take  him  all 
in  all,  I  think  him  more  nearly  an  universal  genius  than 
any  man  of  our  time."  l 

Macaulay's  opinion,  however,  may  not  be  wholly 
beyond  suspicion.  He  himself  had  much  of  Jeffrey's 
dryness  and  positiveness  of  nature,  and  was  tempera- 
mentally limited  in  much  the  same  ways  ;  he  was,  more- 
over, like  Jeffrey  an  ardent  Whig  of  the  Constitutional 
type  ;  and  for  all  these  reasons  he  may  be  thought  to 
have  been  prejudiced.  But  in  Carlyle  we  have  a  witness 
who  was  never  for  a  moment  in  sympathy  with  Jeffrey's 
neat  little  formulas  in  art  and  in  politics,  and  who  has 
never  been  accused  of  registering  unduly  charitable 
opinions  of  even  his  best  friends.  Yet  of  Jeffrey  he 
says,  "  It  is  certain  there  has  no  Critic  appeared  among 
us  since  who  was  worth  naming  beside  him  ;  —  and  his 
influence,  for  good  and  for  evil,  in  Literature  and  other- 
wise, has  been  very  great."  .  .  .  "His  Edinburgh 
Review  [was]  a  kind  of  Delphic  Oracle,  and  Voice  of 
the  Inspired,  for  great  majorities  of  what  is  called  the 
'Intelligent  Public';  and  himself  regarded  universally 
as  a  man  of  consummate  penetration,  and  the  facile 
princeps  in  the  department  he  had  chosen  to  cultivate 
and  practise."  2 

These  quotations  may  stand  in  place  of  countless  minor 
ones  that  might  be  marshalled  ;  they  will  serve  to  make 
real  to  readers  of  to-day  the  magnitude  of  Jeffrey's  power 
in  literary  matters  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  century. 

1  Life  and  Letters,  chap.  9. 

2  Carlyle's  Reminiscences,  ed.  Norton,  II,  271. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

Horner's  nickname  for  Jeffrey,  "  King  Jamfray,"  l  was 
not  a  misnomer. 

What,  then,  were  the  causes  of  Jeffrey's  prestige  and 
popularity?  To  find  a  satisfactory  explanation,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  look  beyond  Jeffrey's  personality,  beyond 
even  the  band  of  brilliant  workers  with  whom  he  was 
associated,  and  of  whose  cleverness  and  knowledge  he 
made  such  well-advised  use.  It  will  be  necessary  to  take 
into  account  the  nature  of  the  new  venture  in  literature 
by  means  of  which  Jeffrey  won  his  reputation,  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  and  to  consider  carefully  its  organ- 
ization, its  relation  to  earlier  Reviews,  its  principles  in 
politics  and  on  social  questions,  its  grounds  of  appeal  to 
the  public,  and  even  such  prosaic  matters  as  its  business 
arrangements.  But  before  taking  up  these  broader 
questions  it  will  be  well  to  examine  briefly  Jeffrey's 
individual  characteristics  as  a  literary  critic. 

II. 

The  point  on  which  Macaulay  laid  greatest  stress  in 
his  praise  of  Jeffrey's  work  was  its  versatility  ;  and  to-day 
as  in  1843  this  versatility  is  noteworthy,  even  after 
standards  of  acquirement  and  performance  have  had 
a  half  century  in  which  to  develop.  Jeffrey  ranges 
with  the  same  unfaltering  step  over  the  most  diverse 
fields  of  knowledge.  He  seems  equally  sure  of  himself 
in  dealing  with  politics,  history,  fiction,  poetry,  and 
philosophy.  That  his  air  of  bravado  and  of  unquestion- 
able mastery  was  something  of  a  trick,  we  now  know  very 
well.  But  even  with  our  latter-day  knowledge  of  the 
tricks  of  the  reviewer's  trade,  we  cannot  help  admiring 
and  being  impressed  with  the  masterful  air  with  which 

1  Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  Homer,  II,  140. 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

Jeffrey  at  one  moment  sketches  the  history  of  English 
poetry,  at  another  analyzes  the  questions  at  issue  be- 
tween materialists  and  idealists  in  philosophy,  now 
argues  against  the  doctrine  of  perfectibility,  and  now 
discusses  points  of  constitutional  law  and  of  government. 
A  little  careful  study  of  Jeffrey's  work  will  usually  show 
that  he  has  had  nothing  startlingly  novel  to  say  on  any 
of  these  questions.  And  yet  our  admiration  for  the 
critic's  cleverness  of  manipulation  survives  even  a  series 
of  such  disenchanting  analyses.  If  these  analyses  fail 
to  show  much  reserve  power  or  originality,  they  make 
perfectly  clear  the  skill  of  treatment,  the  thorough 
command  of  essential  facts,  the  readiness  of  illustration, 
the  keenness  of  vision  within  a  certain  range,  and  the 
ease  of  presentation,  which  are  characteristic  of  Jeffrey's 
best  work.  Admirers  of  his  versatility,  then,  will  not 
claim  for  him  great  originality  or  vast  erudition,  or  that 
kind  of  transforming  insight  that  gives  familiar  facts  an 
unsuspected  significance  by  bringing  them  into  relation 
with  a  new  set  of  first  principles.  But  they  will  insist  on 
their  right  to  delight  in  his  readiness  of  adaptation,  in  his 
quick-eyed  perception,  in  his  tact  in  simplifying  complex 
problems,  and  in  his  unfailing  certainty  of  aim  and 
sureness  of  motion.  He  always  bears  himself  gracefully 
and  confidently  and  threads  his  way  with  the  perfection 
of  sure-footing  to  the  goal  he  has  from  the  first  foreseen  ; 
and  he  does  all  this  with  equal  precision  and  clairvoyance 
whether  he  is  dealing  with  Scott's  Marmion,  or  the 
Memoirs  of  Dr.  Priestley,  or  Dugald  Stewart's  Philo- 
sophical Essays,  or  the  French  translation  of  Jeremy 
Bentham's  Works.  Jeffrey's  mastery  of  his  subject  is 
like  the  successful  barrister's  knowledge  of  his  brief ;  he 
is  sure  to  know  whatever  he  needs  to  know  in  order  to 
carry  the  matter  in  hand  triumphantly  through. 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

Indeed  his  readiness  and  his  plausibility  are  not  the 
only  points  in  which  Jeffrey  the  critic  suggests  Jeffrey  the 
advocate.  He  has  the  defects  as  well  as  the  merits  of 
the  lawyer  in  literature.  He  is  always  making  points  ; 
he  is  always  demonstrating.  The  intellectual  interest 
preponderates  in  his  critical  work,  and  his  discussions 
often  seem,  particularly  to  a  reader  of  modern  impression- 
istic criticism,  hard,  unsympathetic,  searchingly  analytical, 
repellingly  abstract  and  systematic.  He  is  always  on  the 
watch ;  he  never  lends  himself  confidingly  to  his  author 
and  takes  passively  and  gratefully  the  mood  and  the 
images  his  author  suggests.  He  never  loiters  or  dreams. 
He  is  full  of  business  and  bustle  and  perpetually  distracts 
one  with  his  sense  of  what  is  coming  next.  He  might 
well  have  been  in  Wordsworth's  mind  when  the  poet 
wrote  of  those  who  think  that 

"  Nothing  of  itself  must  come 
But  we  must  still  be  seeking." 

Of  course,  however,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this 
tone  and  manner,  so  objectionable  to  some,  and  nowa- 
days perhaps  not  wholly  winning  in  the  eyes  of  any,  are 
common  to  Jeffrey  with  all  dogmatic  critics  ;  and  unques- 
tionably it  is  as  a  dogmatic  critic  that  Jeffrey  must  be 
classed.  By  the  theory  of  criticism  that  had  been  in 
vogue  during  the  eighteenth  century,  there  were  certain 
laws  of  composition  and  principles  of  taste  which  must 
needs  be  observed,  if  the  literary  artist  were  to  attain 
any  degree  of  excellence.  These  laws  and  principles 
had  been  partially  set  down  in  various  treatises,  and  in 
this  form  were  within  the  ken  of  the  critic  and  ready  for 
,  his  use  as  he  might  need  to  appeal  to  them  in  praising  or 
blaming  the  productions  of  would-be  authors.  But  even 
where  these  laws  had  not  been  codified,  they  existed,  so 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

ran  the  ingenious  and  comforting  theory,  implicitly  in  the 
mind  of  the  critic.  In  short,  the  dogmatic  critic  regarded 
himself  and  was  generally  regarded  as  able  to  apply  abso- 
lute tests  of  merit  to  all  literary  work,  and  as  the  final 
authority  on  all  doubtful  matters  of  taste. 

Now,  Jeffrey  was  the  inheritor  of  this  tradition  in 
criticism,  and  naturally  adopted  at  times  its  prophetic 
tone  and  its  pontifical  manner  toward  public  and  authors. 
Yet,  following  his  temperamental  fondness  for  com- 
promises, for  middle  parties  and  mediating  measures, 
Jeffrey  never  tried  formally  to  defend  this  old  doctrine 
or  represented  himself  as  an  absolute  law-giver  in  litera- 
ture. Nowhere  does  he  lay  down  a  complete  set  of 
principles,  like  the  rules  of  Bossu  for  epic  poetry,  or 
those  of  Rapin  for  the  drama,  by  which  excellence  in 
any  form  of  literature  may  be  absolutely  tested.  Such 
a  high-and-dry  Tory  theory  of  criticism  does  not  suggest 
itself  to  Jeffrey  as  tenable.  He  is  a  Whig  in  taste  as  in 
politics,  and  desires  in  both  spheres  the  supremacy  of  a 
chosen  aristocracy.  In  his  essay  on  Scott's  Lady  of  the 
Lake  he  declares  the  standard  of  literary  excellence  to 
reside  in  "  the  taste  of  a  few  .  .  .  persons,  eminently 
qualified,  by  natural  sensibility,  and  long  experience  and 
reflection,  to  perceive  all  beauties  that  really  exist,  as 
well  as  to  settle  the  relative  value  and  importance  of  all 
the  different  sorts  of  beauty."  l  Jeffrey  regards  himself 
as  one  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  this  chosen  aristocracy, 
and  it  is  as  the  exponent  of  the  best  current  opinion  that 
he  speaks  on  all  questions  of  taste.  His  business,  then, 
is  to  dogmatize,  to  pronounce  this  right  and  that  wrong, 
to  praise  this  author  and  blame  that  one  ;  but  his  dog- 
matism is  not  the  dogmatism  of  reason,  but  the  dog- 
matism of  taste ;  he  justifies  his  decisions,  not  by 

p.  39. 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

referring  to  a  code  of  written  laws  from  which  there 
is  no  appeal,  but  by  a  more  or  less  direct  suggestion 
that  he  has  all  the  best  instructed  opinion  behind  him. 

For  the  most  part,  therefore,  in  his  condemnation  of 
an  author,  he  makes  no  use  of  scientific  terms  of  disap- 
proval and  he  appeals  to  no  abstract  principles ;  he 
simply  expresses  his  personal  discontent  with  the  author 
in  commonplace  terms  of  dissatisfaction.  Goethe's 
Wilhelm  Meister,  for  example,  is  "sheer  nonsense,"  "ludi- 
crously unnatural,"  full  of  "pure  childishness  or  mere 
folly,"  "  vulgar  and  obscure,"  full  of  "  absurdities  and 
affectations."  These  terms  are,  for  the  most  part,  mere 
circumlocutions  for  Jeffrey's  dislike,  mere  roundabout 
ways  of  saying  that  the  book  is  not  to  his  taste.  As 
for  any  attempt  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  author 
or  reader  about  the  ends  of  prose  fiction  or  the  best 
methods  of  reaching  those  ends,  Jeffrey  never  thinks 
of  such  a  thing.  He  simply  takes  up  various  passages 
and  declares  he  does  not  comprehend  them,  or  does 
not  fancy  the  subjects  they  treat  of,  or  does  not  like 
the  author's  ideas  or  methods.  He  gives  no  reasons 
for  his  likes  or  dislikes,  but  is  content  to  express  them 
emphatically  and  picturesquely.  This  is,  of  course,  dog- 
matism pure  and  simple,  and  a  dogmatism,  too,  more 
irritating  than  the  dogmatism  that  argues,  for  it  seems 
more  arbitrary  and  more  challenging.  It  is  of  this  tone 
and  method  that  Coleridge  complains  in  the  twenty-first 
chapter  of  his  Biographia  Literal-id,  when,  in  comment- 
ing on  current  critical  literature,  he  protests  against  "  the 
substitution  of  assertion  for  argument "  and  against 
"  the  frequency  of  arbitrary  and  sometimes  petulant 
verdicts." 

But  irritating  as  is  this  pragmatic,  unreasoning  dog- 
matism, it  is  nevertheless  plainly  a  step  forward  from 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

the  view  that  makes  the  critic  absolute  law-giver  in  art. 
As  the  Whig  position  in  politics  is  midway  between 
absolute  Monarchy  and  Democracy,  so  what  we  may 
term  the  Whig  compromise  in  criticism  stands  midway 
between  the  tyranny  of  earlier  critics  and  our  modern 
freedom.  The  mere  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
critic  speaks  with  authority  only  as  representing  a  coterie, 
only  as  interpreting  public  opinion,  is  plainly  a  change 
for  the  better.  The  critic  no  longer  regards  himself  as 
by  divine  right  lord  alike  of  public  and  authors ;  he  no 
longer  measures  literary  success  solely  by  his  own  little 
cut  and  dried  formulas  of  excellence  ;  he  admits  more  or 
less  explicitly  that  the  taste  of  living  readers,  not  rules 
drawn  from  the  works  of  dead  writers,  must  decide  what 
in  literature  is  good  or  bad.  He  still,  to  be  sure,  limits 
arbitrarily  the  circle  whose  taste  he  regards  as  a  valid 
test ;  but  it  is  plain  that  a  new  principle  has  implicitly 
been  accepted,  and  that  the  way  is  opened  for  the  devel- 
opment and  recognition  of  all  kinds  of  beauty  and  power 
the  public  may  require. 

Jeffrey  himself,  however,  seems  never  to  have  suspected 
the  conclusions  that  might  legitimately  be  drawn  from 
the  ideas  that  he  was  helping  to  make  current.  He 
seems  never  to  have  had  a  qualm  of  doubt  touching  his 
right  to  dogmatize  on  the  merits  and  defects  of  art  as 
violently  as  a  critic  of  the  older  school.  In  theory,  he 
held  that  all  artistic  excellence  is  relative  ;  but  in  practice, 
he  never  let  this  doctrine  mitigate  the  severity  of  his  judg- 
ments. He  asserts  in  his  review  of  Alison  on  Taste  that 
"  what  a  man  feels  distinctly  to  be  beautiful,  is  beautiful 
to  him";1  and  that  so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned 
all  pleasure  in  art  is  equally  real  and  justifiable.  Yet 
this  doctrine  seems  never  to  have  paralyzed  in  the 

1  Selections,  p.  1 54. 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

least  his  faith  in  the  superior  worth  of  his  own  kind 
of  pleasure ;  and  he  rates  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge 
just  as  indignantly  for  not  ministering  to  that  pleasure, 
as  if  he  had  some  abstract  standard  of  poetic  excellence, 
which  he  could  prove  they  fell  short  of. 

When  we  try  to  define  Jeffrey's  taste  and  to  deter- 
mine just  what  he  liked  and  disliked  in  literature,  we 
find  an  odd  combination  of  sympathies  and  antipathies. 
Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  has  spoken  of  him  as  in  politics  an 
eighteenth-century  survival  ; l  and  this  seems  at  first  a 
tempting  formula  to  apply  to  his  taste  in  literature. 
But  a  little  consideration  will  show  the  impropriety  of 
any  such  use  of  terms.  The  typical  eighteenth-century 
man  of  letters  is  a  pseudo-classicist ;  and  beyond  the 
pseudo-classical  point  of  view  Jeffrey  had  passed,  just  as 
certainly  as  he  had  never  reached  the  Romantic  point  of 
view.  Of  Pope,  for  example,  he  says  :  he  is  "  much  the 
best,  we  think,  of  the  classical  Continental  school ;  but 
he  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  masters  —  nor  with 
the  pupils  —  of  that  Old  English  one  from  which  there 
had  been  so  lamentable  an  apostasy."  2  Addison  he  con- 
demns for  his  "  extreme  caution,  timidity,  and  flatness,"  2 
and  he  declares  that  "  the  narrowness  of  his  range  in 
poetical  sentiment  and  diction,  and  the  utter  want  either 
of  passion  or  of  brilliancy,  render  it  difficult  to  believe 
that  he  was  born  under  the  same  sun  with  Shakespeare."2 
These  opinions  are  proof  patent  of  Jeffrey's  contempt  for 
pseudo-classicism.  Then,  too,  Jeffrey  is,  as  he  himself 
boasts,  almost  superstitious  in  his  reverence  for  Shak- 
spere.3  More  significant  still  is  his  admiration  for  other 
Elizabethan  dramatists,  like  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Ford, 
and  Webster.  "Of  the  old  English  dramatists,"  he 

1  Hours  in  a  Library,  III,  176.  2  Selections,  p.  10. 

8  Selections,  p.  21. 


INTRODUCTION.  XV11 

assures  us  in  his  essay  on  Ford,  "  it  may  be  said,  in 
general,  that  they  are  more  poetical,  and  more  original  in 
their  diction,  than  the  dramatists  of  any  other  age  or 
country.  Their  scenes  abound  more  in  varied  images, 
and  gratuitous  excursions  of  fancy.  Their  illustrations, 
and  figures  of  speech,  are  more  borrowed  from  rural  life, 
and  from  the  simple  occupations  or  universal  feelings  of 
mankind.  They  are  not  confined  to  a  certain  range  of 
dignified  expressions,  nor  restricted  to  a  particular  assort- 
ment of  imagery,  beyond  which  it  is  not  lawful  to  look 
for  embellishments."  *  Finally,  he  even  commends  Cole- 
ridge's great  favorite,  Jeremy  Taylor,  as  enthusiastically 
as  Coleridge  himself  could  do  :  "  There  is  in  any  one  of 
the  prose  folios  of  Jeremy  Taylor,"  he  asserts,  "  more  fine 
fancy  and  original  imagery  —  more  brilliant  conceptions 
and  glowing  expressions  —  more  new  figures,  and  new 
applications  of  old  figures  —  more,  in  short,  of  the  body 
and  the  soul  of  poetry,  than  in  all  the  odes  and  the  epics 
that  have  since  been  produced  in  Europe."  2 

All  these  judgments  tally  exactly  with  the  faith  of 
Lamb,  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  ;  and  as  one  after 
another  they  fall  under  his  eye,  the  reader  is  led  to  fancy 
that  he  has  to  do  with  a  devotee  of  Romanticism,  with  a 
critic  who  is  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  new  spirit 
in  literature.  But  soon,  judgments  of  an  altogether 
different  nature  force  themselves  on  his  notice.  The 
long  series  of  essays  is  encountered  that  discusses 
Crabbe's  poetry  ;  and  the  reader  sees  at  once  how  far 
Jeffrey  is  from  welcoming  heartily  the  new  age  in  poetry 
or  even  from  allowing  its  prophets  to  prophesy  in  peace 
and  obscurity.  Throughout  his  praise  of  Crabbe  Jeffrey  is 
by  implication  condemning  Wordsworth  ;  nor  does  he  con- 
fine himself  to  this  indirect  method  of  attacking  Roman- 

1  Selections,  p.  1 6.  2  Selections,  p.  5. 


xvill  INTRODUCTION. 

ticism.  In  the  very  first  essay  on  Crabbe  he  turns  aside 
from  his  subject  to  ridicule,  "  the  Wordsworths,  and  the 
Southeys,  and  Coleridges  and  all  that  ambitious  frater- 
nity," and  contrasts  at  great  length  Crabbe's  sanity  with 
Wordsworth's  mysticism.  "  Mr.  Crabbe  exhibits  the 
common  people  of  England  pretty  much  as  they  are  ;  " 1 
whereas  "  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  his  associates  .  .  .  intro- 
duce us  to  beings  whose  existence  was  not  previously 
suspected  by  the  acutest  observers  of  nature  ;  and  excite 
an  interest  for  them  —  where  they  do  excite  any  in- 
terest—  more  by  an  eloquent  and  refined  analysis  of 
their  own  capricious  feelings,  than  by  any  obvious  or 
intelligible  ground  of  sympathy  in  their  situation." 2 
With  Crabbe,  Jeffrey  feels  he  is  on  solid  ground,  deal- 
ing with  a  man  who  sees  life  clearly  and  sensibly,  as 
he  himself  sees  it  ;  and  in  his  enthusiastic  praise  of  the 
minute  fidelity  of  Crabbe,  of  his  uncompromising  truth 
and  realism,  and  of  his  freedom  from  all  meretricious 
effects,  from  affectation  and  from  absurd  mysticism,  we 
have  at  once  the  measure  of  Jeffrey's  poetic  sensibility 
and  the  sure  evidence  of  his  inability  to  sympathize 
genuinely  with  "the  Lakers." 

Of  course,  for  the  classic  passages  expressing  his  im- 
patience of  the  new  movement,  we  must  go  to  the  essays 
on  Wordsworth's  Excursion  and  White  Doe.  Jeffrey's 
objections  to  the  Lakers  fall  under  four  heads:  First, 
the  new  poets  are  nonsensically  mystical ;  secondly,  they 
falsify  life  by  showing  it  through  a  distorting  medium  of 
personal  emotion,  i.e.  they  are  misleadingly  subjective; 
thirdly,  they  are  guilty  of  grotesque  bad  taste  in  their 
realism ;  fourthly,  they  are  pedantically  earnest  and 
serious  in  their  treatment  of  art,  and  inexcusably  pre- 
tentious in  their  proclamation  of  a  new  gospel  of  life. 

1  Selections,  p.  57.  2  Selections,  p.  58. 


INTRODUCTION.  xix 

To  consider  these  points  in  detail  would  lead  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  rather  than  to  a 
discussion  of  Jeffrey.  Still,  Jeffrey's  position  toward  the 
Lakers  is  very  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  illustrates 
admirably  both  his  limitations  and  his  positive  qualities  ; 
moreover,  his  treatment  of  the  Lakers  has  become  a 
tradition  in  the  history  of  criticism  and  deserves  for  that 
reason  some  discussion.  A  little  closer  examination, 
then,  of  the  grounds  of  Jeffrey's  objection  to  the  new 
movement  in  literature  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

When  Jeffrey  praises,  as  he  often  does,  the  poetry  of 
the  Elizabethan  age,  delights  in  its  passion,  celebrates  its 
imaginative  beauty,  its  figurative  richness,  its  fervor  and 
wayward  splendor,  the  reader  seems  to  be  listening  to  a 
genuine  disciple  of  the  new  school  of  poetry ;  and  he 
cannot  but  expect  Jeffrey  to  show  the  same  hearty 
appreciation  for  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  as  for  the 
writings  of  their  chosen  models.  Jeffrey's  rejection, 
however,  of  the  new  school  begins  at  the  very  point 
where  for  their  admirers  their  superiority  to  the  older 
school  begins  to  show  itself,  • — viz.,  the  moment  they 
commence  to  interpret  life  in  terms  of  the  infinite. 
The  intenser  spiritual  consciousness  of  Wordsworth,  his 
constant  and  unchanging  recognition  of  the  relation 
of  every-diy  life  to  the  unseen  world,  are  for  Words- 
worth's admirers  characteristic  sources  of  power  which 
place  him  above  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  as  an  im- 
aginative interpreter  of  life.  For  Jeffrey  they  are  the 
precise  qualities  which  lead  to  Wordsworth's  worst  ab- 
surdities and  most  appallingly  nonsensical  rhapsodies. 
After  quoting  some  typical  passages  where  Wordsworth 
gives  free  utterance  to  his  idealism,  Jeffrey  exclaims:  — 
"  This  is  a  fair  sample  of  that  rapturous  mysticism  which 
eludes  all  comprehension,  and  fills  the  despairing  reader 


XX  INTR  OD  UC  TION. 

with  painful  giddiness  and  terror." 1  This  is  a  perfectly 
sincere  expression  of  genuine  suffering  on  Jeffrey's  part. 
We  cannot  doubt  that  his  whole  mental  life  was  perturbed 
by  such  poems  of  Wordsworth  as  the  great  Ode,  and  that 
it  was  an  act  of  self-preservation  on  his  part  to  burst 
into  indignant  ridicule  and  violent  protest.  To  find  a 
man  of  Wordsworth's  age  and  literary  experience  delib- 
erately penning  such  bewildering  stanzas  and  expressing 
such  unintelligible  emotions,  shook  for  the  moment 
Jeffrey's  faith  in  his  own  little,  well-ordered  universe, 
and  then,  as  he  recovered  from  his  earthquake,  escaped 
from  its  vapors,  and  felt  secure  once  more  in  the  clear 
every-day  light  of  common  sense,  led  him  into  fierce 
invective  against  the  cause  of  his  momentary  panic. 

Hardly  less  impatient  is  Jeffrey  of  Wordsworth's  sub- 
jectivity than  of  his  mysticism.  Why  cannot  Wordsworth 
feel  about  life  as  other  people  feel  about  it,  as  any 
well-bred,  cultivated  man  of  the  world  feels  about  it  ? 
When  such  a  man  sees  a  poor  old  peasant  gathering 
leeches  in  a  pool,  he  pulls  out  his  purse,  gives  him  a 
shilling,  and  walks  on,  speculating  about  the  state  of 
the  poor  law  ;  Wordsworth,  on  the  contrary,  bursts  into 
a  strange  fit  of  raving  about  Chatterton  and  Burns,  and 
"  mighty  poets  in  their  misery  dead,"  and  then  in  some 
mysterious  fashion  converts  the  peasant's  stolidity  into  a 
defence  against  these  gloomy  thoughts.  This  way  of 
treating  the  peasant  seems  to  Jeffrey  utterly  unjustifiable, 
in  the  first  place  because  of  its  grotesque  mysticism,  and 
in  the  second  place  because  it  thrusts  a  personal  motif 
discourteously  into  the  face  of  the  public  and  falsifies 
ludicrously  the  peasant's  character  and  life.  Wordsworth 
has  no  right,  Jeffrey  insists,  to  treat  the  peasant  merely 
as  the  symbol  of  his  own  peculiar  mood.  Here,  as  in 

1  Selections,  p.  115. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

his  protest  against  Wordsworth's  mysticism,  Jeffrey  pleads 
for  common  sense  and  the  commonplace  ;  he  is  the  type 
of  what  Lamb  calls  "  the  Caledonian  intellect,"  which 
rejects  scornfully  ideas  that  cannot  be  adequately  ex- 
pressed in  good  plain  terms,  and  grasped  "  by  twelve 
men  on  a  jury." 

Crabbe's  superiority  to  the  Lakers  lies  for  Jeffrey 
chiefly  in  the  fact  that  he  has  no  idiosyncrasies 
though  he  has  many  mannerisms  ;  he  expresses  no  new 
theories  and  no  peculiar  emotions  in  his  portrayal  of 
common  life.  Hence  his  choice  of  vulgar  subjects  is 
endurable  —  even  highly  commendable.  His  peasants 
are  the  well-known  peasants  of  every-day  England,  with 
whose  hard  lot  it  behoves  an  enlightened  Whig  to  sym- 
pathize —  from  a  distance.  But  a  realism  that,  like 
Wordsworth's,  professes  to  find  in  these  poor  peasants 
the  deepest  spiritual  insight  and  the  purest  springs  of 
moral  life  is  simply  for  Jeffrey  grotesque  in  its  mala- 
droitness  and  its  confusion  of  values.  Sydney  Smith 
used  to  say,  "  If  I  am  doomed  to  be  a  slave  at  all,  I 
would  rather  be  the  slave  of  a  king  than  a  cobbler." 
And  this  same  prejudice  against  any  topsy-turvy  re- 
assignment of  values  was  largely  responsible  for  Jeffrey's 
dislike  of  Wordsworth's  peasants  and  of  his  treatment  of 
common  life.  If  peasants  keep  their  places,  as  Crabbe's 
peasants  do,  they  may  perfectly  well  be  brought  into  the 
precincts  of  poetry ;  but  to  exalt  them  into  types  of  moral 
virtue  and  into  heavenly  messengers  of  divine  truth,  is  to 
"make  tyrants  of  cobblers."  Jacobinism  in  art  as  in 
politics  is  to  Jeffrey  detestable. 

In  fact,  all  the  pretensions  of  the  new  school  to 
illustrate  by  its  art  a  new  gospel  of  life  were  intensely 
disagreeable  to  Jeffrey.  Just  so  long  as  Romanticism 
showed  itself  purely  decorative,  as  in  Scott  or  Keats, 


xxi  i  INTRODUCTION. 

Jeffrey  could  tolerate  it  or  even  delight  in  it.  But  the 
moment  it  begins,  whether  in  Byron  or  Wordsworth,  to 
take  itself  seriously  and  to  struggle  to  express  new  moral 
and  spiritual  ideals,  Jeffrey  protests.  Just  here  lies  the 
key  to  what  some  critics  have  found  rather  a  perplexing 
problem,  —  the  reasons  for  the  precise  degree  of  Jeffrey's 
sympathy  with  Romanticism.  Keats's  luxuriant  pictures 
of  Greek  life  in  Endynrion,  Jeffrey  finds  irresistible  in 
"  the  intoxication  of  their  sweetness "  and  in  the  "  en- 
chantments which  they  so  lavishly  present."  l  Let  the 
poet  remain  a  mere  master  of  the  revels,  or  a  mere 
magician  calling  up  by  his  incantations  in  verse  a  gor- 
geous phantasmagoria  of  sights  and  sounds  for  the  delec- 
tation of  idle  readers,  and  Jeffrey  will  admire  his  fertility 
of  invention,  his  wealth  of  imagination,  his  "  rich  lights 
of  fancy  "  and  "his  flowers  of  poetry."  For  these  reasons 
Moore  and  Campbell  seem  to  Jeffrey  the  most  admirable 
of  the  Romanticists,  and  their  works  the  very  best  of  the 
somewhat  extravagant  modern  school.  Writing  in  1829, 
he  arranges  recent  poets  in  the  following  order  according 
to  the  probable  duration  of  their  fame  :  —  "  The  tuneful 
quartos  of  Southey  are  already  little  better  than  lumber  : 
—  and  the  rich  melodies  of  Keats  and  Shelley,  —  and  the 
fantastical  emphasis  of  Wordsworth,  —  and  the  plebeian 
pathos  of  Crabbe,  are  melting  fast  from  the  field  of  our 
view.  The  novels  of  Scott  have  put  out  his  poetry.  Even 
the  splendid  strains  of  Moore  are  fading  into  distance 
and  dimness  .  .  .  and  the  blazing  star  of  Byron  himself 
is  receding  from  its  place  of  pride.  .  .  .  The  two  who 
have  the  longest  withstood  this  rapid  withering  of  the 
laurel  .  .  .  are  Rogers  and  Campbell ;  neither  of  them, 
it  may  be  remarked,  voluminous  writers,  and  both  dis- 
tinguished rather  for  the  fine  taste  and  consummate 

1  Selections,  p.  88. 


INTR  OD  UC  TION.  xxin 

elegance  of  their  writings,  than  for  that  fiery  passion, 
and  disdainful  vehemence,  which  seemed  for  a  time  to 
be  so  much  more  in  favour  with  the  public."1  Now  a 
glance  at  Jeffrey's  list  of  poets  makes  it  clear  that  those 
for  whom  he  prophesies  lasting  fame  are  either  pseudo- 
classicists  or  decorative  Romanticists,  and  that  those 
whose  day  he  declares  to  be  over  are  for  the  most 
part  poets  whose  Romanticism  was  a  vital  principle. 
Rogers  is,  of  course,  a  genuine  representative  of  the 
psuedo-classical  tradition,  with  all  its  devotion  to  form, 
its  self-restraint,  it*  poverty  of  imagination,  and  its  dis- 
trust of  passion.  Moore,  whom  Jeffrey  places  late  in 
his  list  of  fading  luminaries,  and  Campbell,  whom  he 
finds  most  nearly  unchanging  in  lustre,  are  both  in  a 
way  Romanticists ;  but  they  are  alike  in  seeking  chiefly 
for  decorative  effects  and  in  not  taking  their  art  too 
seriously.  So  long,  then,  as  the  fire  and  the  heat  of 
Romanticism  spent  themselves  merely  in  giving  imagi- 
native splendor  to  style,  Jeffrey  could  tolerate  the  move- 
ment, and  could  even  regard  it  with  favor,  as  a  return 
to  that  power  and  fervor  and  wild  beauty  that  he  had 
taught  himself  to  admire  in  Elizabethan  poetry.  But  the 
moment  the  new  energy  was  suffered  to  penetrate  life 
itself  and  to  convert  the  conventional  world  of  dead  fact, 
through  the  vitalizing  power  of  passion,  into  a  genuinely 
new  poetic  material,  then  Jeffrey  stood  aghast  at  what 
seemed  to  him  a  return  to  chaos.  Byron  with  his  fiery 
bursts  of  selfish  passion,  Wordsworth  with  his  steadily 
glowing  consciousness  of  the  infinite,  and  Shelley  with 
his  "white  heat  of  transcendentalism,"  were  all  alike 
for  Jeffrey  portentously  dangerous  forces  and  unhealthy 
phenomena. 

In  the  preceding  discussion   of   Jeffrey's   relation  to 

1  Jeffrey's  review  of  Mrs.  Hemans's  Records  of  Women. 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

Romanticism,  the  most  noteworthy  characteristics  of  his 
taste  in  literature  and  art  have  been  suggested.  It  is 
useless  to  search  his  writings  for  an  attempt  to  justify 
these  likes  and  dislikes,  in  any  other  way  than  by  an 
appeal  to  common  sense,  or  to  the  consensus  of  the 
best  instructed  opinion.  His  famous  review  of  Alison 
on  Taste  would  be  the  most  natural  place  for  a  formal 
argument  in  behalf  of  certain  favorite  principles  of  art. 
In  this  review,  which  in  a  somewhat  altered  form  stood 
for  many  years  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  as  the 
standard  discussion  of  Beauty,  Jeffrey  Considers  the  nature 
of  taste,  the  origin  of  the  feelings  of  the  Sublime  and  the 
Beautiful,  and  sundry  kindred  questions  ;  but  the  out- 
come of  the  long  discussion  is  wholly  negative  so  far  as 
concerns  the  suggestion  of  any  criterion  of  beauty  or 
satisfactory  test  of  the  claims  of  conflicting  schools  in 
literature  or  in  art. 

Jeffrey's  arguments  in  the  essay  on  Beauty  cannot  be 
analyzed  here  in  detail  ;  analyses  and  comments  will  be 
found  in  the  Notes.  His  conclusion  is  that  the  beauty  of 
an  object  is  merely  the  power  of  that  object  to  set 
vibrating  in  a  human  heart  certain  subtle  chords  of  past 
pleasure  and  pain  ;  that  for  any  individual  observer  the 
object  that  touches  his  heart  in  this  subtly  conjuring 
fashion  is  unquestionably  beautiful  ;  and  that  there  are 
therefore  as  many  kinds  of  real  beauty  as  there  are 
individuals  with  varying  past  experiences.  This  seems 
to  make  hopeless  the  attempt  to  set  up  any  standard  of 
taste,  to  say  of  any  object,  this  is  beautiful  by  divine 
right  and  should  be  so  accepted  by  all  judges.  Yet 
Jeffrey  seems  to  assert  that  there  are  such  preeminently 
beautiful  objects  ;  they  are  the  objects  which  by  virtue 
of  "  universal  and  indestructible  "  associations,  do,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  set  vibrating  in  the  hearts  of  "  the  greater 


•  INTRODUCTION.  XXV 

part  of  mankind,"  chords  of  past  pleasure  and  pain. 
The  unerring  recognition  of  these  objects  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  the  best  taste.  Unfortunately,  Jeffrey  suggests 
no  rule  for  determining  abstractly  what  associations  are 
"  universal  and  indestructible,"  and  no  standard  by  which 
the  clashing  judgments  of  rival  judges  can  be  tested. 
Hence,  his  famous  discussion  offers  very  little  practical 
guidance  to  those  who  are  trying  to  train  their  tastes, 
throws  very  little  light  on  Jeffrey's  own  likes  and  dislikes, 
and  suggests  hardly  any  principles  of  criticism.  . 

In  one  way,  however,  the  discussion  is  serviceable 
to  students  of  Jeffrey's  critical  methods  ;  it  makes 
clearer  the  line  of  thought  that  led  him  to  value  so  highly 
the  ethical  interpretation  of  literature.  Throughout  the 
essay  he  insists  on  the  intimate  connection  between  a 
man's  sense  of  beauty  and  his  moral  feelings.  Beauty, 
he  teaches,  is  the  disguised  suggestion  of  past  passions, — of 
love,  and  pity,  and  fear,  and  hate.  Now  these  emotions 
can  be  faintly  re-awakened  only  in  temperaments  that 
have  experienced  them  richly  and  intensely  at  first-hand ; 
hence  a  keen  sense  of  beauty  can  exist  only  in  a  nature 
that  has  sympathized  widely  and  generously  with  its 
fellows.  Moreover,  the  character  of  these  past  moral 
emotions  will  condition  the  character  of  a  man's  feeling 
for  beauty,  and  will  determine  the  kind  of  objects  that 
stimulate  him  aesthetically.  For  all  these  reasons,  then, 
the  ethical  value  of  literature  was  closely  connected  in 
Jeffrey's  thought  with  its  aesthetic  value,  and  the  ethical 
interpretation  of  literature  seemed  to  him  one  of  the  most 
important  duties  of  the  critic. 

Accordingly,  in  the  preface  to  his  collected  essays 
Jeffrey  claims  special  credit  for  his  frequent  use  of  the 
ethical  point  of  view.  "  If  I  might  be  permitted  farther 
to  state,  in  what  particular  department,  and  generally,  on 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION.  ' 

account  of  what,  I  should  most  wish  to  claim  a  share  of 
those  merits,  I  should  certainly  say,  that  it  was  by  having 
constantly  endeavoured  to  combine  Ethical  precepts  with 
Literary  Criticism,  and  earnestly  sought  to  impress  my 
readers  with  a  sense,  both  of  the  close  connection 
between  sound  Intellectual  attainments  and  the  higher 
elements  of  Duty  and  Enjoyment  ;  and  of  the  just  and 
ultimate  subordination  of  the  former  to  the  latter.  The 
praise  in  short  to  which  I  aspire,  and  to  merit  which 
I  am  conscious  that  my  efforts  were  most  constantly 
directed,  is,  that  I  have,  more  uniformly  and  earnestly 
than  any  preceding  critic,  made  the  Moral  tendencies 
of  the  works  under  consideration  a  leading  subject  of 
discussion." 

This  "proud  claim,"  as  Jeffrey  calls  it,  seems  amply 
justified  when  we  compare  Jeffrey's  essays  either  with 
the  critical  essays  in  the  earlier  Reviews  or  with  the  more 
formal  and  elaborate  critical  essays  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Even  Dr.  Johnson  with  all  his  didacticism 
had  little  notion  of  extracting  from  a  piece  of  literature 
the  subtle  spirit  of  good  or  of  evil  by  which  it  draws  men 
this  way  or  that  way  in  conduct.  An  obvious  infringe- 
ment of  good  morals  in  speech  or  in  plot  he  was  sure  to 
condemn,  and  a  formal  inculcation  of  moral  truth  he  was 
sure  to  recognize  and  approve.  But  neither  in  Johnson 
nor  anywhere  else  before  Jeffrey  do  we  find  a  critic  con- 
stantly attempting  to  detect  and  define  the  moral  atmos- 
phere that  pervades  the  whole  work  of  an  author,  and  to 
determine  the  relation  between  this  moral  atmosphere 
and  the  author's  personality  as  man  and  as  author.  To 
have  perceived  the  value  of  this  ethical  criticism,  to  have 
practised  it  skilfully,  and  to  have  fostered  a  taste  for  it, 
these  are  true  claims  to  distinction  ;  and  Jeffrey's  services 
in  these  directions  have  been  too  often  forgotten.  The 


INTRODUCTION.  xxvn 

greater  breadth  of  view  of  later  critics  and  their  surer 
appreciation  of  ethical  values  should  not  be  allowed  to 
deprive  Jeffrey  of  his  honor  as  a  pioneer  in  ethical 
criticism. 

Of  the  modern  historical  method  of  criticism  Jeffrey 
never  made  thorough  and  consistent  use.  His  grasp  on 
the  principles  of  the  method  and  his  ability  to  apply  them 
are  best  illustrated  in  the  essays  on  Ford's  Dramatic 
Works  (August,  1811),  on  Mme.  de  Stael's  De  la 
Litterature  (November,  1812),  and  on  WilheJm  Meister's 
Apprenticeship  (August,  1825).  The  essay  on  Ford  con- 
tains, in  the  rapid  survey  of  English  poetry  from  the 
earliest  times,  a  piece  of  work  that  is  very  characteristic 
of  Jeffrey ;  the  readiness  of  handling,  the  sure  eye  for 
structure,  the  just  distribution  of  emphasis,  the  aptness 
of  phrasing  and  briskness  of  style  are  such  as  no  other 
critic  in  1811  could  have  reached.  But  even  more  note- 
worthy is  the  breadth  of  view  ;  the  attempt  to  generalize 
the  qualities  of  the  literature  of  the  Restoration  period, 
and  to  explain  them  as  resulting  from  the  social  life  of 
the  time  is  a  courageous  and  fairly  effective  application 
of  the  historical  method,  and  must  have  seemed  to 
Jeffrey's  contemporaries  startlingly  original.  Except 
for  this  essay  we  might  have  supposed  that  Jeffrey's 
introduction  to  the  historical  method  came  through 
Mme.  de  Stael's  work  on  the  relations  between  literature 
and  social  institutions.  But  this  work  was  not  published 
till  1812,  whereas  Jeffrey's  essay  on  Ford  dates  from 
1811. 

The  most  interesting  of  all  the  passages,  however, 
where  Jeffrey  applies  or  discusses  the  historical  method 
is  the  introduction  to  the  essay  on  WilheJm  Meister, 
written  in  1825.  Here  Jeffrey  comes  surprisingly  near 
anticipating  Taine  in  a  formal  statement  of  the  race, 


xxvin  INTRODUCTION. 

milieu,  and  moment  theory  of  literature.  The  passage 
will  be  found  on  pages  159-164  of  this  volume.  It  will 
be  seen  that  in  this  essay  Jeffrey  totally  disregards  race 
as  a  modifying  force  ;  he  takes  it  for  granted  that 
"human  nature  is  everywhere  fundamentally  the  same." 
Taine's  other  two  forces,  —  moment  and  milieu,  —  Jeffrey 
defines  in  words  which  Taine  would  have  accepted  with 
very  little  alteration.  "The  circumstances  which  have 
distinguished  [literature]  into  so  many  local  varieties 
.  .  .  may  be  divided  into  two  great  classes,  —  the  one 
embracing  all  that  relates  to  the  newness  or  antiquity 
of  the  society  to  which  they  belong,  or,  in  other  words, 
to  the  stage  which  any  particular  nation  has  attained 
in  that  progress  from  rudeness  to  refinement,  in  which 
all  are  engaged  ;  • —  the  other  comprehending  what  may 
be  termed  the  accidental  causes  by  which  the  character 
and  condition  of  communities  may  be  affected  ;  such  as 
their  government,  their  relative  position  as  to  power  and 
civilization  to  neighboring  countries,  their  prevailing 
occupations,  determined  in  some  degree  by  the  capabili- 
ties of  their  soil  and  climate."  *  This  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  the  classification  that  Taine  makes  in  the 
famous  Introduction  to  his  Histoire  de  la  litterature 
anglaise? 

Despite,  however,  his  clear  perception  of  the  principles 
on  which  the  use  of  the  historical  method  rests,  Jeffrey 
is  never  to  be  trusted  to  make  intelligent  and  effective 
use  of  the  method,  or  to  be  faithful  to  the  point  of  view 
it  presupposes.  He  is  specially  apt  to  be  unhistorical 
when  he  treats  of  the  beginnings  either  of  literature  or 
of  institutions.  He  lacked  the  knowledge  of  facts 
which  alone  could  render  possible  a  fruitful  historical 

1  Selections,  p.  159. 

2  Cf.  Notes,  pp.  211-15. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXIX 

conception.  His  construction  of  early  periods  is  always 
a  priori  in  terms  of  a  cheap  psychology.  His  acco*unt, 
in  the  essay  on  Lcckic,  of  the  origin  of  government, 
should  be  compared  with  his  description  of  the  earliest 
attempts  at  poetic  composition.  In  both  cases  he  has 
a  great  deal  to  say  about  what  "  it  was  natural  "  for  the 
earliest  experimenters  in  each  kind  of  work  to  aim  at 
and  to  effect,  and  he  has  substantially  nothing  to  say 
of  the  actual  facts  as  determined  by  investigation. 
Moreover,  these  earliest  experimenters  are  for  Jeffrey 
marvellously  like  eighteenth-century  connoisseurs,  con- 
fronting consciously,  and  trying  to  solve  reflectively, 
intricate  problems  in  art  or  in  politics.  This  view  is,  of 
course,  unhistorical,  and  illustrates  the  difficulty  Jeffrey 
had  in  escaping  from  old  ways  of  thought. 

Finally,  Jeffrey  never  applies  the  historical  method 
successfully  to  the  study  of  any  contemporary  piece  of 
literature  ;  almost  his  sole  attempt  so  to  use  the  his- 
torical method  is  in  his  essay  on  Wilhelm  Meister,  and 
the  inadequacy  of  his  treatment  there  is  such  as  to  make 
the  reader  admire  his  discretion  in  not  oftener  trying  to 
interpret  historically  the  life  and  art  of  his  own  day. 
His  failure  to  appreciate  the  mad  revolt  of  Byron  and 
Shelley  against  the  conventionalism  and  poverty  of 
eighteenth-century  moral  ideals  has  already  been  noted, 
as  well  as  his  corresponding  failure  to  comprehend 
Wordsworth's  high  conservatism.  Perhaps  the  most 
damaging  accusation,  that  can  be  made  against  Jeffrey, 
as  a  critic,  is  inability  to  read  and  interpret  the  age  in 
which  he  lived. 

Jeffrey's  imperfect  grasp  of  the  historical  method  is 
shown  in  one  other  way  ;  he  never  realized  that  there 
was  any  conflict  between  his  work  as  a  dogmatic  critic 
and  his  work  as  a  scientific  student  of  literature,  and 


xxx  INTRODUCTION. 

apparently  he  never  had  a  premonition  of  the  blighting 
effect  the  historical  method  was  ultimately  to  have  on  the 
prestige  of  the  dogmatic  critic.  The  history  of  criticism 
since  Jeffrey's  day  has  been  largely  the  history  of  the 
decline  in  power  of  the  dogmatic  critic.  Critics  to-day 
explain  and  interpret,  or  else  they  translate  for  their 
readers  by  means  of  beautiful  symbols  their  dim  and 
obscure  sensations  of  pleasure  and  pain  in  reading  a 
piece  of  literature.  They  are  scientific  or  they  are 
impressionistic  ;  they  rarely  dogmatize  ;  and  when  they 
dogmatize,  they  speak  with  a  fine  consciousness  of  their 
human  fallibility,  which  is  curiously  unlike  the  confidence 
of  Jeffrey  and  his  compeers.  This  change  has  been 
brought  about  partly  by  the  Romantic  movement  with  its 
fostering  of  individualism  in  art,  and  partly  by  the  spread 
of  historical  conceptions  in  all  departments  of  thought. 
Both  these  forces  were  in  full  play  during  Jeffrey's 
life,  and  of  neither  did  he  at  all  measure  the  scope  or 
significance. 


III. 


It  remains  to  speak  of  the  new  venture  in  literature 
with  which  Jeffrey's  name  and  fame  are  always  con- 
nected, the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  to  consider  what 
causes,  apart  from  Jeffrey's  personality,  can  be  suggested 
to  account  for  its  prompt  and  unexampled  success. 

The  story  of  the  foundation  of  the  Revieu>  has  been 
told  so  often  that  it  will  hardly  bear  repeating.  The 
classical  account  is  Sydney  Smith's  and  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Preface  of  his  collected  Works ;  it  has  been  repro- 
duced in  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Jeffrey  l  and  in  the  Life 

1  Ed.  Philadelphia,  1852,  I,  101. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXI 

and  Times  of  Lord  Brougham.^  With  his  usual  crabbed- 
ness  Brougham  disputes  a  few  minor  details,  but  he 
leaves  the  substantial  accuracy  of  "Sydney's"  story  unim- 
peached.  The  main  facts  may  be  briefly  set  together. 

The  idea  of  the  new  Review  was  Sydney  Smith's.  The 
most  important  conspirators  were  Sydney,  Jeffrey,  Francis 
Horner,  and  Brougham.  The  plot  was  discussed  and 
matured  in  Jeffrey's  house  in  Buccleuch  Place,  Edin- 
burgh. Sydney  Smith's  famous  proposal  of  a  motto, 
Tcnui  musam  meditamnr  arena,  "  We  cultivate  literature 
on  a  little  oatmeal,"  was  rejected  ;  the  "sage  Homer's" 
suggestion  was  adopted,  —  a  line  from  Publius  Syrus, 
Judex  damnatur  cum  nocens  absolvitur,  which  foretold  the 
righteous  severity  of  tone  that  was  to  characterize  the 
Rcriew.  The  first  number  was  to  have  appeared  in  June, 
1802,  but  owing  to  dilatory  contributors  and  Jeffrey's  faint- 
heartedness was  seriously  delayed  ;  it  finally  appeared  in 
October,  1802,  under  the  supervision  of  Sydney  Smith. 
After  the  publication  of  the  first  number  Jeffrey  was 
formally  appointed  editor,  and  with  some  hesitation 
accepted  the  post. 

The  success  of  the  Review  was  from  the  start  beyond 
all  expectation.  "  The  effect,"  says  Lord  Cockburn, 
"was  electrical.  And  instead  of  expiring,  as  many  wished, 
in  their  first  effort,  the  force  of  the  shock  was  increased 
on  each  subsequent  discharge.  It  is  impossible  for  those 
who  did  not  live  at  the  time,  and  in  the  heart  of  the 
scene,  to  feel,  or  almost  to  understand  the  impression 
made  by  the  new  luminary,  or  the  anxieties  with  which 
its  motions  were  observed."  2  Lord  Brougham's  account 
of  the  matter  is  no  less  emphatic.  "  The  success  was 
far  beyond  any  of  our  expectations.  It  was  so  great  that 

1  Ed.  New  York,  1871,  I,  176. 

3  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  I,  106. 


XXXll  INTRODUCTION. 

Jeffrey  was  utterly  dumbfounded,  for  he  had  predicted  for 
our  journal  the  fate  of  the  original  '  Edinburgh  Review,' 
which,  born  in  1755,  died  in  1756,  having  produced  only 
two  numbers  !  The  truth  is,  the  most  sanguine  among 
us,  even  Smith  himself,  could  not  have  foreseen  the 
greatness  of  the  first  triumph,  any  more  than  we  could 
have  imagined  the  long  and  successful  career  the  Review 
was  afterwards  to  run,  or  the  vast  reforms  and  improve- 
ments in  all  our  institutions,  social  as  well  as  political,  it 
was  destined  to  effect."  1 

The  subscription  list  of  the  Review  grew  within  six 
years  from  750  to  9000  ;  and  by  1813  it  numbered  more 
than  12,000.  The  importance  of  these  figures  is  better 
understood  when  the  reader  recollects  that  in  1816  the 
London  Times  sold  only  8000  copies  daily.  Moreover, 
it  should  be  remembered  that  one  copy  of  a  magazine 
went  much  further  then  than  it  goes  now,  and  did  service 
in  more  than  a  single  household.  In  1809  Jeffrey  boasted 
that  the  Review  was  read  by  50,000  thinking  people 
within  a  month  after  it  was  printed  ;  doubtless  this  was 
a  perfectly  sound  estimate. 

Various  causes  have  been  suggested  as  contributing  to 
the  instant  and  phenomenal  success  of  the  Review,  — 
the  puzzling  anonymity  of  its  articles,  its  magisterial 
tone,  the  audacity  of  its  attacks,  what  Horner  calls  its 
"  scurrility,"  the  novelty  of  its  Scotch  origin.  All  these 
causes  doubtless  had  their  influence.  More  important 
still,  however,  were  the  wit  and  knowledge  and  originality 
of  the  brilliant  contributors  that  Jeffrey  rallied  round  him. 
Writing  to  his  brother  in  July,  1803,  Jeffrey  thus  describes 
his  fellow-workers  :  "  I  do  not  think  you  know  any  of  my 
associates.  There  is  the  sage  Horner,  however,  whom 
you  have  seen,  and  who  has  gone  to  the  English  bar  with 

1  The  Life  and  Times  of  Lord  Brougham,  I,  180, 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxill 

the  resolution  of  being  Lord  Chancellor  ;  Brougham,  a 
great  mathematician,  who  has  just  published  a  book  upon 
the  Colonial  Policy  of  Europe,  which  all  you  Americans 
should  read  ;  Rev.  Sydney  Smith  and  P.  Elmsley,  two 
Oxonian  priests,  full  of  jokes  and  erudition;  my  excellent 
little  Sanscrit  Hamilton,  who  is  also  in  the  hands  of 
Bonaparte  at  Fontainebleau ;  Thomas  Thomson  and 
John  Murray,  two  ingenious  advocates  ;  and  some  dozen 
of  occasional  contributors,  among  whom  the  most  illus- 
trious, I  think,  are  young  Watt  of  Birmingham,  and  Davy 
of  the  Royal  Institution." l  Many  of  these  names  are 
now  forgotten,  but  those  of  Sydney  Smith,  Brougham, 
Horner  and  Davy  speak  for  themselves  and  are  guaran- 
tees of  brilliancy  of  style,  originality  of  treatment,  and 
vigorous  thought. 

The  editor  and  the  contributors,  then,  must  receive 
their  full  share  of  credit  for  the  success  of  the  new 
Revieiv ;  but  their  ability  alone  can  hardly  account  for  a 
success  that  converted  the  "  blue  and  yellow "  into  a 
national  institution.  To  explain  a  success  so  permanent 
and  far-reaching,  we  must  look  beyond  editor  and  con- 
tributors and  consider  the  relation  of  the  Review  to  its 
social  environment.  The  Edinburgh  Review  came  into 
being  in  answer  to  a  popular  need  ;  it  developed  a  new 
literary  form  to  meet  this  need  ;  and  its  business  arrange- 
ments were  such  as  enabled  the  cleverest  and  most 
suggestive  writers  to  adapt  their  work  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  reading  public  more  readily  and  more 
effectively  than  ever  before.  The  meaning  of  these 
assertions  will  grow  clearer  as  we  consider  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Edinburgh  Review  and  earlier  English 
Reviews. 

1  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Jeffrey,  II,  64. 


xxxiv  INTRODUCTION. 

IV. 

Prior  to  1802  there  were  two  standard  Reviews  in 
Great  Britain, —  the  Monthly  Review  and  the  Critical 
Review.  Minor  Reviews  there  had  been  in  plenty,  of 
longer  or  shorter  life  ;  but  these  two  periodicals  had 
pushed  beyond  their  rivals  and  were  regarded  as  the  best 
of  their  kind.  The  Monthly  Review  had  been  founded  in 
1749  by  Ralph  Griffiths,  a  bookseller;  it  was  Whig  in 
politics  and  Low  Church  in  religion.  Its  rival,  the 
Critical  Review,  of  which  Smollett  was  for  many  years 
editor,  had  been  founded  in  1756,  and  was  Tory  and 
High  Church.  These  Reviews  were  alike  in  form  and 
were  hardly  to  be  distinguished  in  externals  '  and  in 
ostensible  aim  from  the  later  Edinburgh  Review.  They 
were  made  up  of  short  articles  on  current  publications 
and  professed  to  give  trustworthy  opinions  of  the  merits 
of  all  new  books. 

When  we  push  beyond  form  and  outside,  however,  and 
consider  the  contents,  the  scope  and  tone  of  the  articles, 
the  policy  of  the  manager,  and  the  character  of  the  con- 
tributors, we  find  these  earlier  Reviews  totally  unlike  the 
Edinburgh.  They  were  booksellers'  organs,  under  the 
strict  supervision  of  booksellers,  and  often  edited  by 
booksellers.  They  were  used  persistently  and  systemati- 
cally, though,  of  course,  discreetly,  to  further  the  book- 
seller's business  schemes,  to  quicken  the  sale  in  case  of 
a  slow  market,  and  to  damage  the  publications  of  rivals. 
They  were  written  for  the  most  part  by  drudges  and 
penny-a-liners,  who  worked  under  the  orders  of  the  book- 
seller like  slaves  under  the  lash  of  the  slave-driver.  All 
these  points  are  well  illustrated  in  the  history  of  the 
relations  between  Dr.  Griffiths,  editor  of  the  Monthly, 
and  his  subordinates. 


IXTRODUCTIOA".  XXXV 

Griffiths  was  originally  a  bookseller ;  and  though  he 
was  able  later  to  retire  from  this  business  and  to  devote 
himself  wholly  to  the  management  of  his  Review,  he 
retained  still  the  instincts  of  a  petty  tradesman,  and  kept 
his  eye  on  the  state  of  the  market  like  a  skilful  seller  of 
perishable  wares.  Of  scholarship,  of  genuine  taste  and 
literary  ability  he  had  next  to  nothing  ;  but  he  had  shrewd 
common  sense,  sound  business  instincts,  tact  in  dealing 
with  men,  readiness  to  bully  or  to  fawn  as  might  be 
needful,  and  unlimited  patience  in  scheming  for  the  com- 
mercial success  of  his  venture. 

His  dealings  with  Goldsmith  between  1755  and  1765 
and  with  William  Taylor  of  Norwich  between  1790  and 
1800  illustrate  perfectly  his  policy  in  conducting  the 
Monthly  and  the  light  in  which  he  regarded  his  con- 
tributors. Goldsmith  he  by  turns  bullied  and  bribed 
according  as  poor  Goldsmith  was  more  or  less  in  need  of 
money.  On  one  occasion  he  became  Goldsmith's  security 
with  his  tailor  for  a  new  suit  of  clothes  on  condition  that 
Goldsmith  at  once  write  four  articles  for  the  Review; 
these  articles  were  turned  out  to  order,  and  appeared 
in  December,  1758.  On  Goldsmith's  failing  to  pay  his 
tailor's  bill  in  the  specified  time,  Griffiths  demanded  the 
return  of  the  suit  and  also  of  the  books  ;  and  when  he 
found  that  Goldsmith  had  pawned  the  books,  he  wrote 
him  abusively,  terming  him  sharper  and  villain,  and 
threatening  him  with  jail.  In  1759  on  the  appearance 
of  Goldsmith's  first  book,  Griffiths  ordered  one  of  his 
hacks,  the  notorious  Kenrick,  to  ridicule  the  work,  and 
to  make  a  personal  attack  on  the  author.  These  orders 
were  faithfully  carried  out  in  the  next  number  of  the 
Monthly  Review? 

With  William  Taylor  of  Norwich  Griffiths  took  a  very 

1  Forster's  Goldsmith,  London,  1848,  bk.  ii,  p.  170. 


XXXVI  INTRODUCTION. 

different  tone.  Taylor  was  one  of  the  few  men  of 
breeding  and  of  parts  who  before  1802  condescended 
to  write  for  Reviews,  and  he  was  moreover  for  many 
years  the  great  English  authority  on  German  literature. 
For  these  reasons  Griffiths  always  handled  him  with  the 
utmost  tenderness,  and,  even  when  giving  him  orders  or 
refusing  his  articles,  took  a  flattering  tone  of  deference 
and  admiration.  On  one  occasion  Taylor  demanded  an 
increase  of  pay  ;  Griffiths's  answer  gives  a  very  instructive 
glimpse  of  the  relations  between  the  bookseller-editor 
and  his  hack-writers.  The  "gratuity "  for  review-work, 
Griffiths  assures  Taylor,  had  been  settled  fifty  years 
before  at  two  guineas  a  sheet  of  sixteen  printed  pages, 
"  a  sum  not  then  deemed  altogether  puny,"  and  in  the 
case  of  most  writers  had  since  remained  unchanged, 
although  there  had  been  certain  "  allowed  exceptions  in 
favour  of  the  more  difficult  branches  of  the  business." 
These  exceptions,  however,  had  tended  to  cause  much 
jealousy  and  heart-burning  among  the  contributors ;  for 
"it  could  not  be  expected  that  those  labourers  in  the 
vineyard,  who  customarily  executed  the  less  difficult 
branches  of  the  culture,  would  ever  be  cordially  con- 
vinced that  their  merits  and  importance  were  inferior  to 
any."  After  these  laborious  explanations  Griffiths  agrees 
to  raise  Taylor's  compensation  to  three  guineas  per  sheet 
of  sixteen  printed  pages,  though  he  expressly  points  out 
that  by  so  doing  he  risks  "exciting  jealousy  in  the  corps, 
similar,  perhaps,  to  what  happened  among  the  vine- 
dressers, Matt.  chap,  xx."  "  If  objections  arise,"  he 
shrewdly  continues,  "  we  must  resort  for  consolation  to 
a  list  of  candidates  for  the  next  vacancy,  for  in  the 
literary  harvest  there  is  never  any  want  of  reapers." 1 
Griffiths's  slave-driving  propensities  show  clearly  through 

1  J.  W.  Robberd's  Life  of  William   Taylor,  I,  130-132. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxvil 

the  thin  disguise  of  politic  words.  Plainly  he  feels 
himself  absolute  master  of  the  minds  and  wills  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  penny-a-liners  ;  and  it  is  on  these 
penny-a-liners  that  he  resolves  to  depend  for  the  great 
mass  of  his  articles. 

This,  then,  was  the  character  of  a  typical  editor- 
publisher  of  the  old-fashioned  Review,  and  such  in  its 
general  outlines  was  the  policy  he  pursued.  The  results 
were  deplorable.  The  editor-publisher  prescribed  to  his 
hacks  what  treatment  a  book  should  receive.  Some- 
times this  was  with  a  view  to  the  market.  "  I  send  also 
the  '  Horae  Biblicae '  at  a  venture,"  writes  Griffiths  to 
Taylor,  "...  it  signifies  not  much  whether  we  notice 
it  or  not,  as  it  is  not  on  sale" 1  The  Italics  are 
Griffiths's  own.  Sometimes,  the  publisher-editor  merely 
wanted  to  favor  a  friend  or  injure  an  enemy.  Griffiths's 
dictation  in  the  case  of  Goldsmith's  first  book  has  already 
bsen  noted.  On  another  occasion  Griffiths  sent  a  copy 
of  Murphy's  Tacitus  to  Taylor  with  the  following  signifi- 
cant suggestion  :  "  One  thing  I  have  to  mention,  entre 
nous,  that  Mr.  M.  is  one  of  us,  and  that  it  is  a  rule  in  our 
society  for  the  members  to  behave  with  due  decorum 
toward  each  other,  whenever  they  appear  at  their  own 
bar  as  authors,  out  of  their  own  critical  province.  If  a 
kingdom  (like  poor  France  at  present)  be  divided  against 
itself,  '  how  shall  that  kingdom  stand  ? '" 2  If  Griffiths 
ventured  on  this  dictation  with  a  man  of  Taylor's  stand- 
ing and  independence,  his  tyranny  over  his  regular 
dependents  must  have  been  complete  and  relentless. 

As  a  result,  review-writing  became  purely  hack-work. 
The  reviewer  had  no  voice  of  his  own  in  his  criticism  ; 
what  little  individuality  he  might,  in  his  feebleness,  have 

1  J.  W.    Robberd's  Life  of  William  Taylor,  I,  139. 

2  Ibid.,  I,  122. 


xxxviii  INTRODUCTION. 

put  into  his  work,  had  he  been  left  to  himself,  dis- 
appeared under  the  eye  of  his  task- master.  He 
became  a  mere  machine,  praising  and  blaming  per- 
functorily and  conventionally,  at  the  bidding  of  the 
editor-publisher.  Mawkish  adulation  or  random  abuse 
became  the  staple  of  critical  articles  ;  and  in  neither 
kind  of  work  did  the  critic  rise  above  the  dead  level  of 
hopeless  mediocrity. 

A  final  result  of  this  whole  system  of  review-managing 
and  hack-writing  was  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  men  of 
position  to  have  anything  to  do  with  review-writing.  If 
a  man  criticised  books  in  a  Review,  he  felt  that  he  was 
putting  himself  on  a  level  with  Kenrick,  Griffiths's 
notorious  hireling  who  had  been  imprisoned  for  libel, 
with  Kit  Smart,  who  had  bound  himself  to  a  bookseller 
for  ninety-nine  years,  and  with  other  like  wretches. 
William  Taylor  of  Norwich  was  one  of  the  few  gentle- 
men who,  before  1802,  ventured  to  write  for  Reviews. 

With  the  establishment  of  the  Edinburgh  Revieu>  all 
this  was  changed.  The  prime  principle  of  the  new 
Review  was  independence  of  booksellers.  The  plan  was 
not  a  bookseller's  scheme,  but  was  hatched  in  the  fervid 
brains  of  half-a-dozen  young  adventurers  in  law  and 
literature  and  politics.  From  the  start  the  bookseller 
was  a  "  mere  instrument,"  as  Brougham  specially  notes. 
The  management  of  the  Review  was  at  first  in  the  hands 
of  Sydney  Smith.  When  he  set  out  for  London  his  last 
iwords  to  the  publisher  Constable  were,  "  If  you  will 
give  ^200  per  annum  to  your  editor  and  ten  guineas  a 
sheet,  you  will  soon  have  the  best  Review  in  Europe."  3 
Accordingly,  the  editorship  was  at  once  offered  to  Jeffrey, 
at  even  a  higher  salary,  ,£300,  than  Sydney  Smith  had 
named.  Jeffrey  hesitated  because  of  "  the  risk  of  general 

1  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  I,  108. 


INTRODUCTION.  xxxix 

degradation."1  But  he  found  the  ,£300  "a  monstrous 
bribe  "  ;  moreover,  the  other  contributors  were  all  plan- 
ning to  take  their  ten  guineas  a  sheet  ;  accordingly,  after 
many  qualms  he  swallowed  his  scruples  and  became  a 
paid  editor.  "  The  publication,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother, 
in  July  1803,  "is  in  the  highest  degree  respectable  as 
yet,  as  there  are  none  but  gentlemen  connected  with  it. 
If  it  ever  sink  into  the  state  of  an  ordinary  bookseller's 
journal,  I  have  done  with  it." 2 

So  began  Jeffrey's  "  reign  "  of  twenty-six  years ;  and 
so  ended  the  despotism  of  booksellers.  Henceforth  the 
editor,  not  the  publisher,  was  master.  It  was  Jeffrey  who 
decided  what  books  should  be  handled  or  rather  what 
subjects  should  be  discussed  ;  it  was  Jeffrey  who  deter- 
mined the  price  to  be  paid  for  each  article,  —  "I  had," 
he  declares,  "an  unlimited  discretion  in  this  respect";3 
it  was  Jeffrey  who  pleaded  with  the  dilatory,  mollified  the 
refractory,  and  reached  out  here  and  there  after  new  con- 
tributors ;  in  short,  it  was  Jeffrey  who  shaped  the  policy 
of  the  Review  and  impressed  on  it  its  distinctive  char- 
acter. "The  sage  Horner's"  nickname  for  Jeffrey,  "King 
Jamfray,"  was  certainly  apt. 

But  there  were  several  other  hardly  less  important 
points  in  which  the  business  policy  of  the  Edinburgh 
was  a  new  departure.  The  compensation  for  reviewing 
was  greatly  increased.  The  old  price  had  been  two 
guineas  a  sheet  of  sixteen  printed  pages ;  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  after  the  first  three  numbers,  paid  ten  guineas  a 
sheet,  and  very  soon  sixteen  guineas.  Moreover,  this 
was  the  minimum  rate  ;  over  two-thirds  of  the  articles 
were,  according  to  Jeffrey,  "  paid  much  higher,  averaging 

1  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Jeffrey,  II,  63. 

2  Ibid.,  II,  65. 
*  Ibid.,  I,  no. 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

from  twenty  to  twenty-five  guineas  a  sheet  on  the  whole 
number."  1 

Again,  every  contributor  was  forced  to  take  pay ;  no 
contributor,  however  nice  his  honor,  was  suffered  to 
refuse  compensation.  This  change  was  of  the  utmost 
importance ;  the  rule  salved  the  consciences  of  many 
brilliant  young  professional  men,  who  were  glad  of  pay, 
but  ashamed  to  write  for  it,  and  afraid  of  being  dubbed 
penny-a-liners.  By  Jeffrey's  clever  arrangement  they 
could  write  for  fame  or  for  simple  amusement,  and  then 
have  money  "  thrust  upon  them."  With  high  prices  and 
enforced  compensation  the  new  Review  at  once  drew  into 
its  service  men  of  a  totally  different  stamp  from  the  old 
hack-writers. 

Finally,  the  Edinburgh  was  published  quarterly,  whereas 
the  old  Reviews  were  published  monthly.  This  change 
was  for  two  reasons  important :  in  the  first  place,  writers 
had  more  time  in  which  to  prepare  their  articles  and  led 
less  of  a  hand-to-mouth  life  intellectually ;  and,  in  the 
second  place,  the  Review  made  no  attempt  to  notice  all 
publications  and  chose  for  discussion  only  books  of  real 
significance.  Coleridge  particularly  commends  this  part 
of  the  Review's  policy  :  "  It  has  a  claim  upon  the 
gratitude  of  the  literary  republic,  and  indeed  of  the  read- 
ing public  at  large,  for  having  originated  the  scheme  of 
reviewing  those  books  only,  which  are  susceptible  and 
deserving  of  argumentative  criticism."  2 

V. 

These,  then,  were  the  principal  points  in  which  the 
organization  and  policy  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 

1  Lord  Cockburn's  Life  of  Jeffrey,  I,  1 10. 

2  Coleridge,  Biographia  Literaria,  chap.  21. 


INTRODUCTION.  xli 

contrasted  with  those  of  its  predecessors ;  and  the 
influence  of  these  changes  on  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the 
articles  in  the  new  Review  cannot  well  be  exaggerated. 
The  Edinburgh  Review  was  not  to  be  a  catch-all  for  waste 
information  ;  it  was  to  become  an  organ  of  thought,  a 
busy  intellectual  center,  from  which  the  newest  ideas 
were  sent  out  in  a  perpetual  stream  through  the  minds  of 
sympathetic  readers.  The  Review  had  opinions  of  its 
own  on  all  public  questions.  In  politics,  it  advocated 
the  principles  of  the  Constitutional  Whigs,  at  first  in  a 
non-partisan  spirit,  after  1808,  fiercely  and  aggressively  ; 
it  pleaded  for  reform  of  the  representation,  for  Catholic 
emancipation,  for  a  wise  recognition  of  the  just  discontent 
of  the  lower  classes  and  for  judicious  measures  to  allay 
this  discontent  without  violent  Constitutional  changes. 
In  social  matters,  it  urged  reforms  of  all  kinds,  the  repeal 
of  the  game  laws,  the  improvement  of  prisons,  the  protec- 
tion of  chimney-sweeps  and  other  social  unfortunates.  In 
religion,  it  argued  for  toleration.  In  education,  it  attacked 
pedantry  and  tradition,  ridiculed  the  narrowness  of 
university  ideals,  and  contended  for  the  .adoption  of 
practical  methods  and  utilitarian  aims.  In  all  these 
departments  it  criticised  the  existing  order  of  things, 
always  brilliantly  and  suggestively,  and  sometimes  fiercely 
and  radically,  and  stirred  the  public  into  a  keener 
consciousness  and  more  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 
questions  of  the  hour,  social,  political  and  religious. 

Now  it  is  plain  that,  to  accomplish  all  this,  writers 
would  find  it  necessary  to  go  far  outside  of  the  old  limits 
of  book-reviewing,  and  to  make  their  articles  express 
their  own  independent  ideas  on  various  important  topics 
rather  than  simply  their  critical  opinions  of  the  merits  of 
new  publications.  And  this  is  precisely  what  happened. 
A  book-review  became  in  most  cases  merely  a  mask 


xlii  INTRODUCTION. 

for  the  writer's  own  ideas  on  some  burning  question  of 
the  hour.  In  other  words,  the  establishment  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review  really  led  to  the  evolution  of  a 
new  literary  form  ;  the  old-fashioned  review-article  was 
converted  into  a  brief  argumentative  essay  discussing 
some  living  topic,  political  or  social,  in  the  light  of  the 
very  latest  ideas.  This  kind  of  essay  had  been  unknown 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  was  developed  at  the 
opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  response  to  the 
needs  of  the  moment. 

Nor  was  this  change  in  the  nature  of  the  review-article 
unremarked  at  the  time  ;  Hazlitt  noted  it  and  with  his 
usual  sourness  protested  against  it.  "  If  [the  critic] 
recurs,"  he  says,  "to  the  stipulated  subject  in  the  end,  it 
is  not  till  after  he  has  exhausted  his  budget  of  general 
knowledge  ;  and  he  establishes  his  own  claims  first  in 
an  elaborate  inaugural  dissertation  de  omni  sdbili  et 
quibusdam  aliis,  before  he  deigns  to  bring  forward  the 
pretensions  of  the  original  candidate  for  praise,  who  is 
only  the  second  figure  in  the  piece.  We  may  sometimes 
see  articles  of  this  sort,  in  which  no  allusion  whatever  is 
made  to  the  work  under  sentence  of  death,  after  the 
first  announcement  of  the  title-page." J  Coleridge,  on 
the  other  hand,  approved  of  the  change,  and  commended 
the  "  plan  of  supplying  the  vacant  place  of  the  trash  or 
mediocrity  wisely  left  to  sink  into  oblivion  by  their  own 
weight,  with  original  essays  on  the  most  interesting 
subjects  of  the  time,  religious  or  political  ;  in  which  the 
titles  of  the  books  or  pamphlets  prefixed  furnish  only  the 
name  and  occasion  of  the  disquisition."  2  The  reviewers 
themselves  recognized,  of  course,  the  change  they  were 
working,  though  they  did  not  altogether  realize  its 

1  Hazlitt's  Table  Talk,  series  ii,  essay  6. 

2  Coleridge's  Biographia  Literaria,  chap.  21. 


INTRODUCTION.  xliii 

significance.  In  1807,  Homer  writes  Jeffrey,  "Have 
you  any  good  subjects  in  view  for  your  nineteenth? 
There  are  two  I  wish  you,  yourself,  would  undertake,  if 
you  can  pick  up  books  that  would  admit  of  them."1  This 
quotation  illustrates  the  fact  that  the  important  question 
in  the  minds  of  the  reviewers  was  always,  not  "  What  new 
books  have  appeared  ?  "  but  "  What  topics  just  now  have 
the  greatest  actuality  and  are  best  worth  discussing  ?  " 

This,  then,  was  largely  the  cause  of  the  success  of  the 
Reriew  :  it  offered,  in  its  articles,  a  literary  form  by 
means  of  which  the  most  active  and  original  minds  could 
at  once  come  into  communication  with  "  the  intelligent 
public ''  on  all  vital  topics  ;  it  made  the  best  thought  and 
the  newest  knowledge  more  readily  available  than  ever 
before  for  readers  who  were  every  day  becoming  more 
alive  to  their  value. 

The  times  were  plainly  favorable.  The  French  Revo- 
lution had  stirred  men's  imaginations  as  they  had  not 
been  stirred  for  a  century,  and  had  shaken  portentously 
in  all  directions  the  foundations  of  belief.  Traditions  in 
politics,  in  social  organization,  in  religion  were  violently 
assailed  by  men  like  Godwin,  Home  Tooke,  and  Holcroft, 
and  loyally  defended  by  enthusiastic  conservatives.  The 
fever  of  Romanticism  was  already  making  itself  felt  and 
was  quickening  men's  hearts  to  new  passions  and  firing 
their  imaginations  with  new  visions  of  possible  bliss.  The 
air  was  full  of  questions  and  doubts,  of  eager  forecasts  and 
of  ominous  warnings.  All  this  ferment  of  life  and  feeling 
demanded  freer  utterance  than  could  be  found  through 
old  literary  forms  and  with  old  methods  of  publication. 

Moreover,  the  increasing  importance  of  the  middle  class 
and  the  spread  of  popular  education  were  favorable  to 
the  development  of  the  new  literary  form.  The  number 

1  Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  fforner,  1, 419. 


xliv  INTKODUCTIOiV. 

of  men  who  read  and  thought  for  themselves,  had  been 
rapidly  growing.  These  men  were  not  scholars  or  deep 
thinkers,  and  had  no  leisure  to  puzzle  out  learned 
treatises.  They  were  over-worked  professional  men  or 
business  men,  who  were  alive  to  the  questions  of  the 
hour,  who  had  thought  over  them  and  discussed  them 
wherever  and  whenever  they  could,  and  who  were  anxious 
for  guidance  from  "  men  of  light  and  leading."  The 
essays  of  the  new  Review  gave  them  just  what  they 
wanted,  —  brief,  clear,  yet  original  and  suggestive  disser- 
tations by  the  best-trained  minds  on  the  most  important 
current  topics. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  causes,  over  and  beyond 
Jeffrey's  editorial  skill,  and  the  brilliancy  and  originality 
of  his  co-workers,  that  led  to  the  unprecedented  success 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Their  importance  and  their 
significance  are  shown  by  the  fact  that  within  a  few 
years  several  other  Reviews  were  founded  on  precisely 
the  same  plan  with  the  Edinburgh,  and  soon  rivalled  it  in 
popular  favor.  In  1809  the  Tory  Quarterly  Review  was 
started  with  William  Gifford  as  editor,  and  Scott,  Southey, 
Canning,  Ellis,  and  Croker  among  its  contributors.  In 
1820  the  Retrospective  Review  was  established,  and  in 
1824  the  Westminster  Review,  the  organ  of  the  Radicals  ; 
Bentham  was  its  patron,  Bowring  its  editor,  and  James 
Mill  and  John  Stuart  Mill  were  constant  contributors. 
These  Reviews  were  all  quarterlies,  and  in  the  details  of 
their  organization  were  modeled  after  the  famous  Edin- 
burgh. They  all  found  a  ready  welcome  and,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Retrospective,  have  continued  to  thrive 
down  to  our  own  day. 

In  the  sixties,  however,  there  came  a  still  further 
development  of  the  Review  ;  the  Fortnightly  Review  and 
the  Contemporary  Review  were  established,  —  periodicals 


INTRODUCTION.  xlv 

that  retain  of  the  original  Review  nothing  but  the  title. 
They  have  thrown  away  the  mask  of  the  review-article, 
and  publish  directly,  over  the  author's  name,  brief  dis- 
cussions of  whatever  serious  topics  the  public  most  care 
to  hear  about.  The  discussions  appear  monthly,  and 
are  somewhat  less  elaborate  than  the  articles  of  the  old 
Quarterlies,  but  are  fully  as  thoughtful  and  suggestive 
and  stimulating.  These  so-called  Reviews  evidently 
represent  one  step  forward  in  the  process  of  adaptation 
by  means  of  which  the  writings  of  serious  authors  are 
enabled  to  respond  quickly  and  completely  to-  the  needs 
of  the  public  ;  the  establishment  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 
was  merely  one  of  the  earlier  steps  in  the  same  process 
of  adaptation. 


V^iL 


-_        _  V,     -^^   _        „     .  -  j^ 

o^x. 


•k-*^ ' 

A   «K-^ 


DRAMATIC  WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD. 


With   an  Introduction  and  Explanatory  Notes,     By  Henry  Weber, 
Esq.     2  vols.  8vo,  pp.  950.     Edinburgh  and  London,  1811. 


ALL  true  lovers  of  English  poetry  have  been  long  in 
love  with  the  dramatists  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and 
James  ;  and  must  have  been  sensibly  comforted  by  their 
late  restoration  to  some  degree  of  favour  and  notoriety. 
If  there  was  any  good  reason,  indeed,  to  believe  that  the  5 
notice  which  they  have  recently  attracted  proceeded  from 
any  thing  but  that  indiscriminate  rage  for  editing  and 
annotating  by  which  the  present  times  are  so  happily 
distinguished,  we  should  be  disposed  to  hail  it  as  the 
most  unequivocal  symptom  of  improvement  in  public  10 
taste  that  has  yet  occurred  to  reward  and  animate  our 
labours.  At  all  events,  however,  it  gives  us  a  chance  for 
such  an  improvement ;  by  placing  in  the  hands  of  many, 
who  would  not  otherwise  have  heard  of  them,  some  of 
those  beautiful  performances  which  we  have  always  15 
regarded  as  among  the  most  pleasing  and  characteristic 
productions  of  our  native  genius. 

Ford  certainly  is  not  the  best  of  those  neglected 
writers,  —  nor  Mr.  Weber  by  any  means  the  best  of 
their  recent  editors.  But  we  cannot  resist  the  oppor-  20 
tunity  which  this  publication  seems  to  afford,  of  saying 
a  word  or  two  of  a  class  of  writers,  whom  we  have  long 
worshipped  in  secret  with  a  sort  of  idolatrous  veneration, 
and  now  find  once  more  brought  forward  as  candidates 
for  public  applause.  The  sera  to  which  they  belong, 


2  DRAMA  TIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

indeed,  has  always  appeared  to  us  by  far  the  brightest  in 
the  history  of  English  literature,  —  or  indeed  of  human 
intellect  and  capacity.  There  never  was,  any  where, 
any  thing  like  the  sixty  or  seventy  years  that  elapsed 
5  from  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  reign  to  the  period  of  the 
Restoration.  In  point  of  real  force  and  originality  of 
genius,  neither  the  age  of  Pericles,  nor  the  age  of 
Augustus,  nor  the  times  of  Leo  X.,  nor  of  Louis  XIV., 
can  come  at  all  into  comparison  :  For,  in  that  short 

10  period,  we  shall  find  the  names  of  almost  all  the  very 
great  men  that  this  nation  has  ever  produced,  —  the 
names  of  Shakespeare,  and  Bacon,  and  Spenser,  and 
Sydney,  —  and  Hooker,  and  Taylor,  and  Barrow,  and 
Raleigh,  —  and  Napier,  and  Milton,  and  Cudworth, 

15  and  Hobbes,  and  many  others  ;  — men,  all  of  them,  not 
merely  of  great  talents  and  accomplishments,  but  of  vast 
compass  and  reach  of  understanding,  and  of  minds  truly 
creative  and  original ;  —  not  perfecting  art  by  the  deli- 
cacy of  their  taste,  or  digesting  knowledge  by  the 

20  justness  of  their  reasonings  ;  but  making  vast  and 
substantial  additions  to  the  materials  upon  which  taste 
and  reason  must  hereafter  be  employed,  —  and  enlarging 
to  an  incredible  and  unparalleled  extent,  both  the  stores 
and  the  resources  of  the  human  faculties. 

25  Whether  the  brisk  concussion  which  was  given  to 
men's  minds  by  the  force  of  the  Reformation  had  much 
effeQt  in  producing  this  sudden  development  of  British 
genius,  we  cannot  undertake  to  determine.  For  our  own 
part,  we  should  be  rather  inclined  to  hold,  that  the 

30  Reformation  itself  was  but  one  symptom  or  effect  of 
that  great  spirit  of  progression  and  improvement  which 
had  been  set  in  operation  by  deeper  and  more  general 
causes ;  and  which  afterwards  blossomed  out  into  this 
splendid  harvest  of  authorship.  But  whatever  may  have 


DRAMA  TIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD.  3 

been  the  causes  that  determined  the  appearance  of  those 
great  works,  the  fact  is  certain,  not  only  that  they 
appeared  together  in  great  numbers,  but  that  they 
possessed  a  common  character,  which,  in  spite  of  the 
great  diversity  of  their  subjects  and  designs,  would  have  5 
made  them  be  classed  together  as  the  works  of  the  same 
order  or  description  of  men,  even  if  they  had  appeared 
at  the  most  distant  intervals  of  time.  They  are  the 
works  of  Giants,  in  short,  —  and  of  Giants  of  one  nation 
and  family  ;  —  and  their  characteristics  are,  great  force,  10 
boldness,  and  originality ;  together  with  a  certain  raci- 
neSJT-ef-  English  peculiarity,  which  distinguishes  them 
from  all  those  performances  that  have  since  been 
produced  among  ourselves,  upon  a  more  vague  and 
general  idea  of  European  excellence.  Their  sudden  15 
appearance,  indeed,  in  all  this  splendour  of  native 
luxuriance,  can  only  be  compared  to  what  happens  on 
the  breaking  up  of  a  virgin  soil,  —  where  all  the 
indigenous  plants  spring  up  at  once  with  a  rank  and 
irrepressible  fertility,  and  display  whatever  is  peculiar  or  20 
excellent  in  their  nature,  on  a  scale  the  most  conspicuous 
and  magnificent.  The  crops  are  not  indeed  so  clean,  as 
where  a  more  exhausted  mould  has  been  stimulated  by 
systematic  cultivation  ;  nor  so  profitable,  as  where  their 
quality  has  been  varied  by  a  judicious  admixture  ofVs 
exotics,  and  accommodated  to  the  demands  of  the 
universe  by  the  combinations  of  an  unlimited  trade. 
But  to  those  whose  chief  object  of  admiration  is  the 
living  power  and  energy  of  vegetation,  and  who  take 
delight  in  contemplating  the  various  forms  of  her  j 
unforced  and  natural  perfection,  no  spectacle  can  be 
more  rich,  splendid,  or  attractive.  - 

In    the    times    of   which    we    are    speaking,    classical 
learning,  though  it  had  made  great  progress,  had  by  no 


4  DRAMA  TIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD. 

means  become  an  exclusive  study  ;  and  the  ancients  had 
not  yet  been  permitted  to  subdue  men's  minds  to  a  sense 
of  hopeless  inferiority,  or  to  condemn  the  moderns  to  the 
lot  of  humble  imitators.  They  were  resorted  to,  rather 
5  to  furnish  materials  and  occasional  ornaments,  than  as 
models  for  the  general  style  of  composition  ;  and,  while 
they  enriched  the  imagination,  and  insensibly  improved 
the  taste  of  their  successors,  they  did  not  at  all  restrain 
their  freedom,  or  impair  their  originality.  No  common 

10  standard  had  yet  been  erected,  to  which  all  the  works  of 
European  genius  were  required  to  conform  ;  and  no 
general  authority  was  acknowledged,  by  which  all  private 
or  local  ideas  of  excellence  must  submit  to  be  corrected. 
Both  readers  and  authors  were  comparatively  few  in 

15  number.  The  former  were  infinitely  less  critical  and 
difficult  than  they  have  since  become  ;  and  the  latter,  if 
they  were  not  less  solicitous  about  fame,  were  at  least 
much  less  jealous  and  timid  as  to  the  hazards  which 
attended  its  pursuit.  Men,  indeed,  seldom  took  to 

20  writing  in  those  days,  unless  they  had  a  great  deal  of 
matter  to  communicate  ;  and  neither  imagined  that  they 
could  make  a  reputation  by  delivering  commonplaces  in 
an  elegant  manner,  or  that  the  substantial  value  of  their 
sentiments  would  be  disregarded  for  a  little  rudeness  or 

25  negligence  in  the  finishing.  They  were  habituated, 
therefore,  both  to  depend  upon  their  own  resources,  and 
to  draw  upon  them  without  fear  or  anxiety  ;  and  followed 
the  dictates  of  their  own  taste  and  judgment,  without 
standing  much  in  awe  of  the  ancients,  of  their  readers, 

30  or  of  each  other. 

The  achievements  of  Bacon,  and  those  who  set  free 

'our  understandings  from  the  shackles  of  Papal  and  of 

tyrannical   imposition,  afford   sufficient   evidence  of   the 

benefit  which  resulted  to  the  reasoning  faculties  from 


DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHiV  FORD.  5 

this  happy  independence  of  the  first  great  writers  of  this 
nation.  But  its  advantages  were,  if  possible, ,  still  more 
conspicuous  in  the  mere  literary  character  of  their  pro- 
ductions. The  quantity  of  bright  thoughts,  of  original 
images,  and  splendid  expressions,  which  they  poured  5 
forth  upon  every  occasion,  and  by  which  they  illuminated 
and  adorned  the  darkest  and  most  rugged  topics  to 
which  they  had  happened  to  turn  themselves,  is  such  as 
has  never  been  equalled  in  any  other  age  or  country  ; 
and  places  them  at  least  as  high,  in  point  of  fancy  and  10 
imagination,  as  of  force  of  reason,  or  comprehensiveness 
of  understanding.  In  this  highest  and  most  comprehen- 
sive sense  of  the  word,  a  great  proportion  of  the  writers 
we  have  alluded  to  were  Poets:  and,  without  going  to 
those  who  composed  in  metre,  and  chiefly  for  purposes  15 
of  delight,  we  will  venture  to  assert,  that  there  is  in  any 
one  of  the  prose  folios  of  Jeremy  Taylor  more  fine 
fancy  and  original  imagery  —  more  brilliant  conceptions 
and  glowing  expressions  —  more  new  figures,  and  new 
applications  of  old  figures  —  more,  in  short,  of  the  body  20 
and  the  soul  of  poetry,  than  in  all  the  odes  and  .the  epics 
that  have  since  been  produced  in  Europe.  There  are 
large  portions  of  Barrow,  and  of  Hooker  and  Bacon,  of 
which  we  may  say  nearly  as  much  :  nor  can  any  one 
have  a  tolerably  adequate  idea  of  the  riches  of  our  25 
language  and  our  native  genius,  who  has  not  made 
himself  acquainted  with  the  prose  writers,  as  well  as  the 
poets,  of  this  memorable  period. 

The  civil  wars,  and  the  fanaticism  by  which  they  were 
fostered,  checked  all  this  fine  bloom  of  the  imagination,  30 
and  gave  a  different  and  less  attractive  character  to  the 
energies  which  they  could  not  extinguish.  Yet,  those 
were  the  times  that  matured  and  drew  forth  the  dark,  but 
powerful  genius  of  such  men  as  Cromwell,  and  Harrison, 


6  DRAMA  TTC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

' 
and   Fleetwood,   &c.  —  the    milder    and    more   generous 

enthusiasm  of  Blake,  and  Hutchison,  and  Hampden  — 
and  the  stirring  and  indefatigable  spirit  of  Pym,  and 
Hollis,  and  Vane  —  and  the  chivalrous  and  accomplished 
5  loyalty  of  Strafford  and  Falkland  ;  at  the  same  time  that 
they  stimulated  and  repaid  the  severer  studies  of  Coke, 
and  Selden,  and  Milton.  The  Drama,  however,  was 
entirely  destroyed,  and  has  never  since  regained  its 
honours  ;  and  Poetry,  in  general,  lost  its  ease,  and  its 

10  majesty  and  force,  along  with  its  copiousness  and 
originality. 

The  Restoration  made  things  still  worse  :  for  it  broke 
down  the-  barriers  of  our  literary  independence,  and 
reduced  us  to  a  province  of  the  great  republic  of  Europe. 

15  The  genius  and  fancy  which  lingered  through  the  usur- 
pation, though  soured  and  blighted  by  the  severities  of 
that  inclement  season,  were  still  genuine  English  genius 
and  fancy ;  and  owned  no  allegiance  to  any  foreign 
authorities.  But  the  Restoration  brought  in  a  French 

20  taste  upon  us,  and  what  was  called  a  classical  and  a 
polite  taste  ;  and  the  wings  of  our  English  Muses  were 
clipped  and  trimmed,  and  their  flights  regulated  at  the 
expense  of  all  that  was  peculiar,  and  much  of  what  was 
brightest  in  their  beauty.  The  King  and  his  courtiers, 

25  during  their  long  exile,  had,  of  course,  imbibed  the  taste 
of  their  protectors  ;  and,  coming  from  the  gay  court  of 
France,  with  something  of  that  additional  profligacy  that 
belonged  to  their  outcast  and  adventurer  character,  were 
likely  enough  to  be  revolted  by  the  peculiarities,  and  by 

30  the  very  excellences,  of  our  native  literature.  The  grand 
and  sublime  tone  of  our  greater  poets,  appeared  to  them 
dull,  morose,  and  gloomy  ;  and  the  fine  play  of  their  rich 
and  unrestrained  fancy,  mere  childishness  and  folly : 
while  their  frequent  lapses  and  perpetual  irregularity 


DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD.  7 

were  set  down  as  clear  indications  of  barbarity  and 
ignorance.  Such  sentiments,  too,  were  natural,  we  must 
admit,  for  a  few  dissipated  and  witty  men,  accustomed 
all  their  days  to  the  regulated  splendour  of  a  court  —  to 
the  gay  and  heartless  gallantry  of  French  manners  —  5 
and  to  the  imposing  pomp  and  brilliant  regularity  of 
French  poetry.  But,  it  may  appear  somewhat  more 
unaccountable  that  they  should  have  been  able  to  impose 
their  sentiments  upon  the  great  body  of  the  nation. 
A  court,  indeed,  never  has  so  much  influence  as  at  the  10 
moment  of  a  restoration  :  but  the  influence  of  an  English 
court  has  been  but  rarely  discernible  in  the  literature  of 
the  country ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  peculiar 
circumstances  in  which  the  nation  was  then  placed,  we 
believe  it  would  have  resisted  this  attempt  to  naturalise  15 
foreign  notions,  as  sturdily  as  it  was  done  on  almost 
every  other  occasion. 

At  this  particular  moment,  however,  the  native  literature 
of  the  country  had  been  sunk  into  a  very  low  and  feeble 
state  by  the  rigours  of  the  usurpation,  —  the  best  written  20 
recent  models  laboured  under  the  reproach  of  republi- 
canism, —  and  the  courtiers  were  not  only  disposed  to 
see  all  its  peculiarities  with  an  eye  of  scorn  and  aversion, 
but  had  even  a  good  deal  to  say  in  favour  of  that  very 
opposite  style  to  which  they  had  been  habituated.  It  was  25 
a  witty,  and  a  grand,  and  a  splendid  style.  It  showed 
more  scholarship  and  art,  than  the  luxuriant  negligence  of 
the  old  English  school  ;  and  was  not  only  free  from  many 
of  its  hazards  and  some  of  its  faults,  but  possessed 
merits  of  its  own,  of  a  character  more  likely  to  please  30 
those  who  had  then  the  power  of  conferring  celebrity,  or 
condemning  to  derision.  Then  it  was  a  style  which  it 
was  peculiarly  easy  to  justify  by  argument  ;  and  in 
support  of  which  great  authorities,  as  well  as  imposing 


8  DRAMA  TIC    WORK'S   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

reasons,  were  always  ready  to  be  produced.  It  came 
upon  us  with  the  air  and  the  pretension  of  being  the 
style  of  cultivated  Europe,  and  a  true  copy  of  the  style 
of  polished  antiquity.  England,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
5  had  but  little  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  world  for  a 
considerable  period  of  time  :  Her  language  was  not  at 
all  studied  on  the  Continent,  and  her  native  authors 
had  not  been  taken  into  account  in  forming  those 
ideal  standards  of  excellence  which  had  been  recently 

10  constructed  in  France  and  Italy  upon  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  classics,  and  of  their  own  most  celebrated  writers. 
When  the  comparison  came  to  be  made,  therefore,  it  is 
easy  to  imagine  that  it  should  generally  be  thought  to  be 
very  much  to  our  disadvantage,  and  to  understand  how 

15  the  great  multitude,  even  among  ourselves,  should  be 
dazzled  with  the  pretensions  of  the  fashionable  style  of 
writing,  and  actually  feel  ashamed  of  their  own  richer 
and  more  varied  productions. 

It  would  greatly  exceed  our  limits  to  describe  accurately 

20  the  particulars  in  which  this  new  Continental  style  differed 
from  our  old  insular  one  :  But,  for  our  present  purpose, 
it  may  be  enough  perhaps  to  say,  that  it  was  more 
worldly,  and  more  townish,  - —  holding  more  of  reason, 
and  ridicule,  and  authority  —  more  elaborate  and  more 

25  assuming  —  addressed  more  to  the  judgment  than  to  the 
feelings,  and  somewhat  ostentatiously  accommodated  to 
the  habits,  or  supposed  habits,  of  persons  in  fashionable 
life.  Instead  of  tenderness  and  fancy,  we  had  satire 
and  sophistry  —  artificial  declamation,  in  place  of  the 

30  spontaneous  animation  of  genius  —  and  for  the  universal 
language  of  Shakespeare,  the  personalities,  the  party 
politics,  and  the  brutal  obscenities  of  Dryden.  Nothing, 
indeed,  can  better  characterize  the  change  which  had 
taken  place  in  our  national  taste,  than  the  alterations  and 


DRAMA  TIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD.  9 

additions  which  this  eminent  person  presumed  —  and 
thought  it  necessary  —  to  make  on  the  productions  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton.  The  heaviness,  the  coarseness, 
and  the  bombast  of  that  abominable  travestie,  in  which 
he  has  exhibited  the  Paradise  Lost  in  the  form  of  an  5 
opera,  and  the  atrocious  indelicacy  and  compassionable 
stupidity  of  the  new  characters  with  which  he  has  polluted 
the  enchanted  solitude  of  Miranda  and  Prospero  in  the 
Tempest,  are  such  instances  of  degeneracy  as  we  would 
be  apt  to  impute  rather  to  some  transient  hallucination  10 
in  the  author  himself,  than  to  the  general  prevalence  of 
any  systematic  bad  taste  in  the  public,  did  we  not  know 
that  Wycherly  and  his  coadjutors  were  in  the  habit  of 
converting  the  neglected  dramas  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
into  popular  plays,  merely  by  leaving  out  all  the  romantic  15 
sweetness  of  their  characters  —  turning  their  melodious 
blank  verse  into  vulgar  prose  —  and  aggravating  the 
indelicacy  of  their  lower  characters,  by  lending  a  more 
disgusting  indecency  to  the  whole  dramatis  persona. 

Dryden  was,  beyond  all  comparison,  the  greatest  poet  20 
of  his  own  day  ;  and,  endued  as  he  was  with  a  vigorous 
and   discursive   imagination,    and  possessing  a   mastery 
over  his  language  which  no  later  writer  has  attained,  if 
he  had  known  nothing  of  foreign  literature,  and  been  left  to 
form  himself  on  the  models  of  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and  25 
Milton  ;  or  if  he  had  lived  in. the  country,  at  a  distance 
from  the  pollutions   of  courts,  factions,  and  playhouses, 
there  is  reason  to  think  that  he  would  have  built  up  the 
pure  and  original  school  of  English  poetry  so  firmly,  as 
to  have   made   it   impossible  for  fashion,  or  caprice,  or  30 
prejudice  of  any  sort,   ever  to  have  rendered  any  other 
popular  among  our  own  inhabitants.     As  it  is,  he  has  not 
written  one  line  that  is  pathetic,  and  very  few  that  can 
be  considered  as  sublime. 


10  DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

Addison,  however,  was  the  consummation  of  this 
Continental  style  ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  redeemed  about 
the  same  time  by  the  fine  talents  of  Pope,  would  probably 
have  so  far  discredited  it,  as  to  have  brought  us  back 
5  to  our  original  faith  half  a  century  ago.  The  extreme 
caution,  timidity,  and  flatness  of  this  author  in  his  poetical 
compositions  —  the  narrowness  of  his  range  in  poetical 
sentiment  and  diction,  and  the  utter  want  either  of 
passion  or  of  brilliancy,  render  it  difficult  to  believe  that 

10  he  was  born  under  the  same  sun  with  Shakespeare,  and 
wrote  but  a  century  after  him.  His  fame,  at  this  day 
stands  solely  upon  the  delicacy,  the  modest  gaiety,  and 
ingenious  purity  of  his  prose  style  ;  — •  for  the  occasional 
elegance  and  small  ingenuity  of  his  poems  can  never 

15  redeem  the  poverty  of  their  diction,  and  the  tameness  of 
their  conception.  Pope  has  incomparably  more  spirit 
and  taste  and  animation  :  but  Pope  is  a  satirist,  and  a 
moralist,  and  a  wit,  and  a  critic,  and  a  fine  writer,  much 
more  than  he  is  a  poet.  He  has  all  the  delicacies  and 

20  proprieties  and  felicities  of  diction  —  but  he  has  not  a 
great  deal  of  fancy,  and  scarcely  ever  touches  any  of  the 
greater  passions.  He  is  much  the  best,  we  think,  of  the 
classical  Continental  school  ;  but  he  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  masters  —  nor  with  the  pupils  —  of  that  Old 

25  English  one  from  which  there  had  been  so  lamentable  an 
apostacy.  There  are  no  pictures  of  nature  or  of  simple 
emotion  in  all  his  writings.  He  is  the  poet  of  town  life, 
and  of  high  life,  and  of  literary  life  ;  and  seems  so  much 
afraid  of  incurring  ridicule  by  the  display  of  natural 

30  feeling  or  unregulated  fancy,  that  it  is  difficult  not  to 
imagine  that  he  would  have  thought  such  ridicule  very 
well  directed. 

The  best  of  what  we  copied  from  the  Continental  poets, 
on  this   desertion  of  our  own   great  originals,  is   to  be 


DRAMA  TIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD.  1 1 

found,  perhaps,  in  the  lighter  pieces  of  Prior.  That  tone 
of  polite  raillery  —  that  airy,  rapid,  picturesque  narrative, 
mixed  up  with  wit  and  naivete  —  that  style,  in  short,  of 
good  conversation  concentrated  into  flowing  and  polished 
verses,  was  not  within  the  vein  of  our  native  poets  ;  and  5 
probably  never  would  have  been  known  among  us,  if  we 
had  been  left  to  our  own  resources.  It  is  lamentable 
that  this,  which  alone  was  worth  borrowing,  is  the  only 
thing  which  has  not  been  retained.  The  tales  and  little 
apologues  of  Prior  are  still  the  only  examples  of  this  10 
style  in  our  language. 

\Yith  the  wits  of  Queen  Anne  this  foreign  school 
attained  the  summit  of  its  reputation  ;  and  has  ever 
since,  we  think,  been  declining,  though  by  slow  and 
almost  imperceptible  gradations.  Thomson  was  the  first  15 
writer  of  any  eminence  who  seceded  from  it,  and  made 
some  steps  back  to  the  force  and  animation  of  our 
original  poetry.  Thomson,  however,  was  educated  in 
Scotland,  where  the  new  style,  we  believe,  had  not  yet 
become  familiar  ;  and  lived,  for  a  long  time,  a  retired  and  20 
unambitious  life,  with  very  little  intercourse  with  those 
who  gave  the  tone  in  literature  at  the  period  of  his  first 
appearance.  Thomson,  accordingly,  has  always  been 
popular  with  a  much  wider  circle  of  readers,  than  either 
Pope  or  Addison  ;  and,  in  spite  of  considerable  vulgarity  25 
and  signal  cumbrousness  of  diction,  has  drawn,  even  from 
the  fastidious,  a  much  deeper  and  more  heartfelt 
admiration.^^ 

Young  exhibits,  we  think,  a  curious  combination,  or 
contrast  rather,  of  the  two  styles  of  which  we  have  been  30 
speaking.  Though  incapable  either  of  tenderness  or 
passion,  he  had  a  richness  and  activity  of  fancy  that 
belonged  rather  to  the  days  of  James  and  Elizabeth,  than 
to  those  of  George  and  Anne  :  —  But  then,  instead  of 


12  DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

indulging  it,  as  the  older  writers  would  have  done,  in 
easy  and  playful  inventions,  in  splendid  descriptions,  or 
glowing  illustrations,  he  was  led,  by  the  restraints  and 
established  taste  of  his  age,  to  work  it  up  into  strange 
5  and  fantastical  epigrams,  or  into  cold  and  revolting 
hyperboles.  Instead  of  letting  it  flow  gracefully  on,  in 
an  easy  and  sparkling  current,  he  perpetually  forces  it 
out  in  jets,  or  makes  it  stagnate  in  formal  canals  ;  and 
thinking  it  necessary  to  write  like  Pope,  when  the  bent  of 

10  his  genius  led  him  rather  to  copy  what  was  best  in 
Cowley  and  most  fantastic  in  Shakespeare,  he  has 
produced  something  which  excites  wonder  instead  of 
admiration,  and  is  felt  by  every  one  to  be  at  once 
ingenious,  incongruous,  and  unnatural. 

15  After  Young,  there  was  a  plentiful  lack  of  poetical 
talent,  down  to  a  period  comparatively  recent.  Akenside 
and  Gray,  indeed,  in  the  interval,  discovered  a  new  way 
of  imitating  the  ancients  ;  —  and  Collins  and  Goldsmith 
produced  some  small  specimens  of  exquisite  and  original 

20  poetry.  At  last,  Cowper  threw  off  the  whole  trammels 
of  French  criticism  and  artificial  refinement  ;  and,  setting 
at  defiance  all  the  imaginary  requisites  of  poetical  diction 
and  classical  imagery  —  dignity  of  style,  and  politeness 
of  phraseology  —  ventured  to  write  again  with  the  force 

25  and  the  freedom  which  had  characterised  the  old  school 
of  English  literature,  and  been  so  unhappily  sacrificed, 
upwards  of  a  century  before.  Cowper  had  many  faults, 
and  some  radical  deficiencies  ;  —  but  this  atoned  for  all. 
There  was  something  so  delightfully  refreshing,  in  seeing 

30  natural  phrases  and  natural  images  again  displaying 
their  unforced  graces,  and  waving  their  unpruned  heads 
in  the  enchanted  gardens  of  poetry,  that  no  one  com- 
plained of  the  taste  displayed  in  the  selection  ;  —  and 
Cowper  is,  and  is  likely  to  continue,  the  most  popular 


DRAMATIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD.  13 

of  all  who  have  written  for  the  present  or  the  last  gener- 
ation. 

Of  the  poets  who  have  come  after  him,  we  cannot, 
indeed,  say  that  they  have  attached  themselves  to  the 
school  of  Pope  and  Addison  ;  or  that  they  have  even  5 
failed  to  show  a  much  stronger  predilection  for  the  native 
beauties  of  their  great  predecessors.  Southey,  and 
Wordsworth,  and  Coleridge,  and  Miss  Baillie,  have  all  of 
them  copied  the  manner  of  our  older  poets  ;  and,  along 
with  this  indication  of  good  taste,  have  given  great  10 
proofs  of  original  genius.  The  misfortune  is,  that  their 
copies  of  those  great  originals  are  liable  to  the  charge  of 
extreme  affectation.  They  do  not  write  as  those  great 
poets  would  have  written  :  they  merely  mimic  their 
manner,  and  ape  their  peculiarities  ; —  and  consequently,  15 
though  they  profess  to  imitate  the  freest  and  most  careless 
of  all  versifiers,  their  style  is  more  remarkably  and 
offensively  artificial  than  that  of  any  other  class  of 
writers.  They  have  mixed  in,  too,  so  much  of  the 
mawkish  tone  of  pastoral  innocence  and  babyish  20 
simplicity,  with  a  sort  of  pedantic  emphasis  and  ostenta- 
tious glitter,  that  it  is  difficult  not  to  be  disgusted  with 
their  perversity,  and  with  the  solemn  self-complacency, 
and  keen  and  vindictive  jealousy,  with  which  they  have 
put  in  their  claims  on  public  admiration.  But  we  have  25 
said  enough  elsewhere  of  the  faults  of  those  authors  ; 
and  shall  only  add,  at  present,  that,  notwithstanding  all 
these  faults,  there  is  a  fertility  and  a  force,  a  warmth  of 
feeling  and  an  exaltation  of  imagination  about  them, 
which  classes  them,  in  our  estimation,  with  a  much  higher  30 
order  of  poets  than  the  followers  of  Dryden  and  Addison  ; 
and  justifies  an  anxiety  for  their  fame,  in  all  the  admirers 
of  Milton  and  Shakespeare. 

Of  Scott,  or  of  Campbell,  we  need  scarcely  say  any 


14  DRAMATIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD. 

thing,  with  reference  to  our  present  object,  after  the 
very  copious  accounts  we  have  given  of  them  on  former 
occasions.  The  former  professes  to  copy  something  a 
good  deal  older  than  what  we  consider  as  the  golden  age 

5  of  English  poetry,  —  and,  in  reality,  has  copied  every 
style,  and  borrowed  from  every  manner  that  has  prevailed, 
from  the  times  of  Chaucer  to  his  own  ;  —  illuminating 
and  uniting,  if  not  harmonizing  them  all,  by  a  force  of 
colouring,  and  a  rapidity  of  succession,  which  is  not  to 

10  be  met  with  in  any  of  his  many  models.  The  latter,  we 
think,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  copied  his  pathos,  or 
his  energy,  from  any  models  whatever,  either  recent  or 
early.  The  exquisite  harmony  of  his  versification  is 
elaborated,  perhaps,  from  the  Castle  of  Indolence  of 

15  Thomson,  and  the  serious  pieces  of  Goldsmith  ; — and  it 
seems  to  be  his  misfortune,  not  to  be  able  to  reconcile 
himself  to  any  thing  which  he  cannot  reduce  within  the 
limits  of  this  elaborate  harmony.  This  extreme  fastid- 
iousness, and  the  limitation  of  his  efforts  to  themes  of 

20  unbroken  tenderness  or  sublimity,  distinguish  him  from 
the  careless,  prolific,  and  miscellaneous  authors  of  our 
primitive  poetry  ;  —  while  the  enchanting  softness  of  his 
pathetic  passages,  and  the  power  and  originality  of  his 
more  sublime  conceptions,  place  him  at  a  still  greater 

25  distance  from  the  wits,  as  they  truly  called  themselves, 
of  Charles  II.  and  Queen  Anne. 

We  do  not  know  what  other  apology  to  offer  for  this 
hasty,  and,  we  fear,  tedious  sketch  of  the  history  of  our 
poetry,  but  that  it  appeared  to  us  to  be  necessary,  in 

30  order  to  explain  the  peculiar  merit  of  that  class  of  writers 
to  which  the  author  before  us  belongs  ;  arid  that  it  will 
very  greatly  shorten  what  we  have  still  to  say  on  the 
characteristics  of  our  older  dramatists.  An  opinion 
prevails  very  generally  on  the  Continent,  and  with 


DRAMATIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD.  15 

foreign-bred  scholars  among 'ourselves,  that  our  national 
taste  has  been  corrupted  chiefly  by  our  idolatry  of  Shake- 
speare ;  —  and   that   it   is   our  patriotic    and   traditional 
admiration  of  that  singular  writer,  that  reconciles  us  to 
the   monstrous   compound  of   faults    and    beauties    that    5 
occur  in   his   performances,   and   must  to   all    impartial 
judges  appear  quite  absurd  and  unnatural.     Before  enter- 
ing upon  the  character  of  a  contemporary  dramatist,  it 
was  of  some  importance,  therefore,   to  show  that  there 
was  a  distinct,  original,  and  independent  school  of  liter-  10 
ature  in   England  in   the   time  of   Shakespeare  ;  to  the 
general  tone  of  whose  productions  his  works  were  suffi- 
ciently conformable  ;  and  that  it  was  owing  to  circum- 
stances in  a  great  measure  accidental,  that  this  native 
school  was  superseded  about  the  time  of  the  Restoration,  15 
and  a  foreign  standard  of  excellence  intruded  on  us,  not 
in   the  drama  only,  but    in    every  other  department  of 
poetry.     This  new  style  of  composition,  however,  though 
adorned  and  recommended  by  the   splendid  talents  of 
many  of  its  followers,    was  never  perfectly  naturalised,  20 
we  think,   in  this  country ;  and  has   ceased,  in  a  great 
measure,  to  be  cultivated  by  those  who  have  lately  aimed 
with  the  greatest  success  at  the  higher  honours  of  poetry. 
Our  love  of  Shakespeare,  therefore,  is  not  a  monomania 
or  solitary  and  unaccountable  infatuation  ;  but  is  merely  25 
the  natural  love  which  all  men  bear  to  those  forms  of 
excellence    that    are    accommodated    to    their    peculiar 
character,   temperament,  and  situation  ;  and   which  will 
always  return,  and  assert  its  power  over  their  affections, 
long  after  authority  has  lost  its  reverence,  fashions  been  30 
antiquated,  and  artificial  tastes  passed  away.     In  endeav- 
ouring, therefore,  to  bespeak  some  share  of  favour  for 
such  of  his  contemporaries  as  had  fallen  out  of  notice, 
during  the  prevalence  of  an  imported,  literature,  we  con- 


1 6  DRAMATIC    WORKS  OF  JOHN  FORD. 

ceive  that  we  are  only  enlarging  that  foundation  of  native 
genius  on  which  alone  any  lasting  superstructure  can  be 
raised,  and  invigorating  that  deep-rooted  stock  upon 
which  all  the  perennial  blossoms  of  our  literature  must 
5  still  be  engrafted. 

The  notoriety  of  Shakespeare  may  seem  to  make  it 
superfluous  to  speak  of  the  peculiarities  of  those  old 
dramatists,  of  whom  he  will  be  admitted  to  be  so  worthy 
a  representative.  Nor  shall  we  venture  to  say  anything 

10  of  the  confusion  of  their  plots,  the  disorders  of  their 
chronology,  their  contempt  of  the  unities,  or  their  imper- 
fect discrimination  between  the  provinces  of  Tragedy 
and  Comedy.  Yet  there  are  characteristics  which  the 
lovers  of  literature  may  not  be  displeased  to  find  enu- 

15  merated,  and  which  may  constitute  no  dishonourable 
distinction  for  the  whole  fraternity,  independent  of  the 
splendid  talents  and  incommunicable  graces  of  their 
great  chieftain. 

Of  the  old   English  dramatists,  then,  including  under 

20  this  name  (besides  Shakespeare),  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
Massinger,  Jonson,  Ford,  Shirley,  Webster,  Dekkar, 
Field,  and  Rowley,  it  may  be  said,  in  general,  that  they 
are  more  poetical,  and  more  original  in  their  diction,  than 
the  dramatists  of  any  other  age  or  country.  Their  scenes 

25  abound  more  in  varied  images,  and  gratuitous  excursions 
of  fancy.  Their  illustrations,  and  figures  of  speech,  are 
more  borrowed  from  rural  life,  and  from  the  simple  occu- 
pations or  universal  feelings  of  mankind.  They  are  not 
confined  to  a  certain  range  of  dignified  expressions,  nor 

30  restricted  to  a  particular  assortment  of  imagery,  beyond 
which  it  is  not  lawful  to  look  for  embellishments.  Let 
any  one  compare  the  prodigious  variety,  and  wide-ranging 
freedom  of  Shakespeare,  with  the  narrow  round  of  flames, 
tempests,  treasons,  victims,  and  tyrants,  that  scantily 


*       DRAMA  TIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD.  1 7 

adorn  the  sententious  pomp  of  the  French  drama, /and 
he  will  not  fail  to  recognise  the  vast  superiority  of  the 
former,  in  the  excitement  of  the  imagination,  and  all  the 
diversities  of  poetical  delight.  That  very  mixture  of 
styles,  of  which  the  French  critics  have  so  fastidiously  5 
complained,  forms,  when  not  carried  to  any  height  of 
extravagance,  one  of  the  greatest  charms  of  our  ancient 
dramatists.  It  is  equally  sweet  and  natural  for  person- 
ages toiling  on  the  barren  heights  of  life,  to  be  occasion- 
ally recalled  to  some  vision  of  pastoral  innocence  and  10 
tranquillity,  as  for  the  victims  or  votaries  of  ambition  to 
cast  a  glance  of  envy  and  agony  on  the  joys  of  humble 
content. 

Those  charming  old  writers,  however,  have  a  still  more 
striking  peculiarity  in  their  conduct  of  the  dialogue.  On  15 
the  modern  stage,  every  scene  is  visibly  studied  and 
digested  beforehand,  —  and  every  thing  from  beginning 
to  end,  whether  it  be  description,  or  argument,  or  vitu- 
peration, is  very  obviously  and  ostentatiously  set  forth  in 
the  most  advantageous  light,  and  with  all  the  decorations  20 
of  the  most  elaborate  rhetoric.  Now,  for  mere  rhetoric, 
and  fine  composition,  this  is  very  right ;  —  but,  for  an 
imitation  of  nature,  it  is  not  quite  so  well  :  And  however 
we  may  admire  the  skill  of  the  artist,  we  are  not  very 
likely  to  be  moved  with  any  very  lively  sympathy  in  the  25 
emotions  of  those  very  rhetorical  interlocutors.  When  we 
come  to  any  important  part  of  the  play,  on  the  Con- 
tinental or  modern  stage,  we  are  sure  to  have  a  most 
complete,  formal,  and  exhausting  discussion  of  it,  in  long 
flourishing  orations  ,  —  argument  after  argument  pro-  3° 
pounded  and  answered  with  infinite  ingenuity,  and  topic 
after  topic  brought  forward  in  well-digested  method, 
without  any  deviation  that  the  most  industrious  and 
practised  pleader  would  not  approve  of, — till  nothing 


1 8  DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD.       •» 

more  remains  to  be  said,  and  a  new  scene  introduces 
us  to  a  new  set  of  gladiators,  as  expert  and  persevering 
as  the  former.  It  is  exactly  the  same  when  a  story  is  to 
be  told, — a  tyrant  to  be  bullied,  —  or  a  princess  to  be 
5  wooed.  On  the  old  English  stage,  however,  the  proceed- 
ings were  by  no  means  so  regular.  There  the  discussions 
always  appear  to  be  casual,  and  the  argument  quite 
artless  and  disorderly.  The  persons  of  the  drama,  in 
short,  are  made  to  speak  like  men  and  women  who  meet 

10  without  preparation,  in  real  life.  Their  reasonings  are 
perpetually  broken  by  passion,  or  left  imperfect  for  want 
of  skill.  They  constantly  wander  from  the  point  in  hand, 
in  the  most  unbusinesslike  manner  in  the  world  ;  —  and 
after  hitting  upon  a  topic  that  would  afford  a  judicious 

15  playwright  room  for  a  magnificent  seesaw  of  pompous 
declamation,  they  have  generally  the  awkwardness  to  let 
it  slip,  as  if  perfectly  unconscious  of  its  value ;  and  uni- 
formly leave  the  scene  without  exhausting  the  contro- 
versy, or  stating  half  the  plausible  things  for  themselves 

20  that  any  ordinary  advisers  might  have  suggested  —  after 
a  few  weeks'  reflection.  As  specimens  of  eloquent  argu- 
mentation, we  must  admit  the  signal  inferiority  of  our 
native  favourites  ;  but  as  true  copies  of  nature,  —  as 
vehicles  of  passion,  and  representations  of  character,  we 

25  confess  we  are  tempted  to  give  them  the  preference. 
When  a  dramatist  brings  his  chief  characters  on  the 
stage,  we  readily  admit  that  he  must  give  them  something 
to  say,  —  and  that  this  something  must  be  interesting 
and  characteristic  ;  — but  he  should  recollect  also,  that 

30  they  are  supposed  to  come  there  without  having  antici- 
pated all  they  were  to  hear,  or  meditated  on  all  they  were 
to  deliver  ;  and  that  it  cannot  be  characteristic,  therefore, 
because  it  must  be  glaringly  unnatural,  that  they  should 
proceed  regularly  through  every  possible  view  of  the 


DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JO  FIX  FORD.  19 

subject,  and  exhaust,  in  set  order,  the  whole  magazine 
of  reflections  that  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  their 
situation. 

It  would  not  be  fair,  however,  to  leave  this  view  of  the 
matter,  without  observing,  that  this  unsteadiness  and  5 
irregularity  of  dialogue,  which  gives  such  an  air  of  nature 
to  our  older  plays,  and  keeps  the  curiosity  and  attention 
so  perpetually  awake,  is  frequently  carried  to  a  most 
blamable  excess  ;  and  that,  independent  of  their  passion 
for  verbal  quibbles,  there  is  an  inequality  and  a  c'apri-  10 
cious  uncertainty  in  the  taste  and  judgment  of  these 
good  old  writers,  which  excites  at  once  our  amazement 
and  our  compassion.  If  it  be  true,  that  no  other  man 
has  ever  written  so  finely  as  Shakespeare  has  done  in 
his  happier  passages,  it  is  no  less  true  that  there  is  not  a  15 
scribbler  now  alive  who  could  possibly  write  worse  than 
he  has  sometimes  written,  —  who  could,  on  occasion, 
devise  more  contemptible  ideas,  or  misplace  them  so 
abominably,  by  the  side  of  such  incomparable  excellence. 
That  there  were  no  critics,  and  no  critical  readers  in  20 
those  days,  appears  to  us  but  an  imperfect  solution  of 
the  difficulty.  He  who  could  write  so  admirably,  must 
have  been  a  critic  to  himself.  Children,  indeed,  may 
play  with  the  most  precious  gems,  and  the  most  worth- 
less pebbles,  without  being  aware  of  any  difference  in  25 
their  value  ;  but  the  fiery  powers  which  are  necessary  to 
the  production  of  intellectual  excellence,  must  enable  the 
possessor  to  recognise  it  as  excellence  ;  and  he  who 
knows  when  he  succeeds,  can  scarcely  be  unconscious  of 
his  failures.  Unaccountable,  however,  as  it  is,  the  fact  3° 
is  certain,  that  almost  all  the  dramatic  writers  of  this 
age  appear  to  be  alternately  inspired,  and  bereft  of 
understanding ;  and  pass,  apparently  without  being 
conscious  of  the  change,  from  the  most  beautiful  displays 


20  DRAMATIC    WORKS   OF  JOHN  FORD. 

of  genius    to  the  most    melancholy   exemplifications    of 
stupidity. 

There  is  only  one  other  peculiarity  which  we  shall 
notice  in  those  ancient  dramas  ;  and  that  is,  the  singular, 
5  though  very  beautiful  style,  in  which  the  greater  part  of 
them  are  composed,  —  a  style  which  we  think  must  be 
felt  as  peculiar  by  all  who  peruse  them,  though  it  is  by 
no  means  easy  to  describe  in  what  its  peculiarity  consists. 
It  is  not,  for  the  most  part,  a  lofty  or  sonorous  style,— 

10  nor  can  it  be  said  generally  to  be  finical  or  affected, — or 
strained,  quaint,  or  pedantic  :  —  But  it  is,  at  the  same 
time,  a  style  full  of  turn  and  contrivance,  —  with  some 
little  degree  of  constraint  and  involution, — very  often 
characterised  by  a  studied  briefness  and  simplicity  of 

15  diction,  yet  relieved  by  a  certain  indirect  and  figurative 
cast  of  expression,  —  and  almost  always  coloured  with  a 
modest  tinge  of  ingenuity,  and  fashioned,  rather  too 
visibly,  upon  a  particular  model  of  elegance  and  purity. 
In  scenes  of  powerful  passion,  this  sort  of  artificial  pret- 

20  tiness  is  commonly  shaken  off  ;  and,  in  Shakespeare,  it 
disappears  under  all  his  forms  of  animation  :  But  it  sticks 
closer  to  most  of  his  contemporaries.  In  Massinger  (who 
has  no  passion),  it  is  almost  always  discernible  ;  and,  in 
the  author  before  us,  it  gives  a  peculiar  tone  to  almost 

25  all  the  estimable  parts  of  his  productions. 


CHARACTERS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS. 


By  William  Hazlitt.     8vo,  pp.  332.     London,    1817?- 


THIS  is  not  a  book  of  black-letter  learning,  or  historical 
elucidation  ;  —  neither  is  it  a  metaphysical  dissertation, 
full  of  wise  perplexities  and  elaborate  reconcilements.  It 
is,  in  truth,  rather  an  encomium  on  Shakespeare,  than  a 
commentary  or  critique  on  him  —  and  is  written,  more  to  5 
show  extraordinary  love,  than  extraordinary  knowledge  of 
his  productions.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  very  pleasing  book 
—  and,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  a  book  of  very  con- 
siderable originality  and  genius.  The  author  is  not  merely 
an  admirer  of  our  great'dramatist,  but  an  Idolater  of  him;  10 
and  openly  professes  his  idolatry.  We  have  ourselves 
too  great  a  leaning  to  the  same  superstition,  to  blame  him 
very  much  for  his  error,  and  though  we  think,  of  course, 
that  our  own  admiration  is,  on  the  whole,  more  discrimi- 
nating and  judicious,  there  are  not  many  points  on  which,  15 
especially  after  reading  his  eloquent  exposition  of  them, 
we  should  be  much  inclined  to  disagree  with  him. 

1  It  may  be  thought  that  enough  had  been  said  of  our  early 
dramatists,  in  the  immediately  preceding  article  ;  and  it  probably  is 
so.  But  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  thus  renewing,  in  my 
own  name,  that  vow  of  allegiance,  which  I  had  so  often  taken 
anonymously  to  the  only  true  and  lawful  King  of  our  English  Poetry! 
and  now  venture,  therefore,  fondly  to  replace  this  slight  and  perish- 
able wreath  on  his  august  and  undecaying  shrine  :  with  no  farther 
apology  than  that  it  presumes  to  direct  attention  but  to  one,  and 
that,  as  I  think,  a  comparatively  neglected  aspect  of  his  universal 
genius. 


22         CHARACTERS   OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS. 

The  book,  as  we  have  already  intimated,  is  written  less 
to  tell  the  reader  what  Mr.  H.  knows  about  Shakespeare 
or  his  writings,  than  to  explain  to  them  what  hefee/s  about 
them  —  and  why  he  feels  so — and  thinks  that  all  who 
5  profess  to  love  poetry  should  feel  so  likewise.  What  we 
chiefly  look  for  in  such  a  work,  accordingly,  is  a  fine  sense 
of  the  beauties  of  the  author,  and  an  eloquent  exposition 
of  them  ;  and  all  this,  and  more,  we  think,  may  be  found 
in  the  volume  before  us.  There  is  nothing  niggardly  in 

10  Mr.  H.'s  praises,  and  nothing  affected  in  his  raptures. 
He  seems  animated  throughout  with  a  full  and  hearty 
sympathy  with  the  delight  which  his  author  should  inspire, 
and  pours  himself  gladly  out  in  explanation  of  it,  with  a 
fluency  and  ardour,  obviously  much  more  akin  to  enthu- 

15  siasm  than  affectation.  He  seems  pretty  generally,  in- 
deed, in  a  state  of  happy  intoxication  —  and  has  borrowed 
from  his  great  original,  not  indeed  the  force  or  brilliancy 
of  his  fancy,  but  something  of  its  playfulness,  and  a  large 
share  of  his  apparent  joyousness  and  self-indulgence  in 

20  its  exercise.  It  is  evidently  a  great  pleasure  to  him  to  be 
fully  possessed  with  the  beauties  of  his  author,  and  to 
follow  the  impulse  of  his  unrestrained  eagerness  to  im- 
press them  upon  his  readers. 

When  we  have  said  that  his  observations  are  generally 

25  right,  we  have  said,  in  substance,  that  they  are  not 
generally  original  ;  for  the  beauties  of  Shakespeare  are 
not  of  so  dim  or  equivocal  a  nature  as  to  be  visible  only 
to  learned  eyes  —  and  undoubtedly  his  finest  passages 
are  those  which  please  all  classes  of  readers,  and  are  ad- 

30  mired  for  the  same  qualities  by  judges  from  every  school 
of  criticism.  Even  with  regard  to  those  passages,  how- 
ever, a  skilful  commentator  will  find  something  worth 
hearing  to  tell.  Many  persons  are  very  sensible  of  the 
effect  of  fine  poetry  on  their  feelings,  who  do  not  well 


CHARACTERS  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS.        23 

know  how  to  refer  these  feelings  to  their  causes  ;  and  it 
is  always  a  delightful  thing  to  be  made  to  see  clearly  the 
sources  from  which  our  delight  has  proceeded  —  and  to 
trace  back  the  mingled  stream  that  has  flowed  upon  our 
hearts,  to  the  remoter  fountains  from  which  it  has  been  5 
gathered.  And  when  this  is  done  with  warmth  as  well 
as  precision,  and  embodied  in  an  eloquent  description  of 
the  beauty  which  is  explained,  it  forms  one  of  the  most 
attractive,  and  not  the  least  instructive,  of  literary  exer- 
cises. In  all  works  of  merit,  however,  and  especially  i:i  10 
all  works  of  original  genius,  there  are  a  thousand  retiring 
and  less  obtrusive  graces,  which  escape  hasty  and  super- 
ficial observers,  and  only  give  out  their  beauties  to  fond 
and  patient  contemplation  ;  a  thousand  slight  and  har- 
monising touches,  the  merit  and  the  effect  of  which  are  15 
equally  imperceptible  to  vulgar  eyes  ;  and  a  thousand 
indications  of  the  continual  presence  of  that  poetical 
spirit,  which  can  only  be  recognised  by  those  who  are  in 
some  me'asure  under  its  influence,  or  have  prepared  them- 
selves to  receive  it,  by  worshipping  meekly  at  the  shrines  20 
which  it  inhabits. 

In  the  exposition  of  these,  there  is  room  enough  for 
originality,  —  and  more  room  than  Mr.  H.  has  yet  filled. 
In  many  points,  however,  he  has  acquitted  himself  excel- 
lently ;  —  partly  in  the  development  of  the  principal  25 
characters  with  which  Shakespeare  has  peopled  the  fancies 
of  all  English  readers  —  but  principally,  we  think,  in  the 
delicate  sensibility  with  which  he  has  traced,  and  the 
natural  eloquence  with  which  he  has  pointed  out  that 
fond  familiarity  with  beautiful  forms  and  images  —  that  30 
eternal  recurrence  to  what  is  sweet  or  majestic  in  the 
simple  aspects  of  nature  —  that  indestructible  love  of 
flowers  and  odours,  and  dews  and  clear  waters,  and  soft 
airs  and  sounds,  and  bright  skies,  and  woodland  solitudes, 


24        CHARACTERS   OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS. 

and  moonlight  bowers,  which  are  the  Material  elements 
of  Poetry- — and  that  fine  sense  of  their  undefinable 
relation  to  mental  emotion,  which  is  its  essence  and 
vivifying  Soul  —  and  which,  in  the  midst  of  Shakespeare's 

5  most  busy  and  atrocious  scenes,  falls  like  gleams  of  sun- 
shine on  rocks  and  ruins  —  contrasting  with  all  that  is 
rugged  and  repulsive,  and  reminding  us  of  the  existence 
of  purer  and  brighter  elements!  —  which  HE  ALONE  has 
poured  out  from  the  richness  of  his  own  mind,  without 

10  effort  or  restraint  ;  and  contrived  to  intermingle  with  the 
play  of  all  the  passions,  and  the  vulgar  course  of  this 
world's  affairs,  without  deserting  for  an  instant  the  proper 
business  of  the  scene,  or  appearing  to  pause  or  digress, 
from  the  love  of  ornament  or  need  of  repose!  —  HE  ALONE, 

15  who,  when  the  object  requires  it,  is  always  keen  and 
worldly  and  practical  —  and  who  yet,  without  changing 
his  hand,  or  stopping  his  course,  scatters  around  him,  as 
he  goes,  all  sounds  and  shapes  of  sweetness  —  and  con- 
jures up  landscapes  of  immortal  fragrance  and  freshness, 

20  and  peoples  them  with  Spirits  of  glorious  aspect  and 
attractive  grace  —  and  is  a  thousand  times  more  full  of 
fancy  and  imagery,  and  splendour,  than  those  who,  in 
pursuit  of  such  enchantments,  have  shrunk  back  from  the 
delineation  of  character  or  passion,  and  declined  the  dis- 

25  cussion  of  human  duties  and  cares.  More  full  of  wisdom 
and  ridicule  and  sagacity,  than  all  the  moralists  and 
satirists  that  ever  existed  —  he  is  more  wild,  airy,  and  in- 
ventive, and  more  pathetic  and  fantastic,  than  all  the 
poets  of  all  regions  and  ages  of  the  world  :  —  and  has  all 

30  those  elements  so  happily  mixed  up  in  him,  and  bears  his 

high  faculties  so  temperately,  that  the  most  severe  reader 

cannot  complain  of  him  for  want  of  strength  or  of  reason 

—  nor   the    most    sensitive    for   defect   of   ornament    or 

ingenuity.     Every  thing  in  him  is  in  unmeasured  abund- 


CHARACTERS   OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS.        25 

ance,  and  unequalled  perfection  —  but  every  thing  so 
balanced  and  kept  in  subordination,  as  not  to  jostle  or 
disturb  or  take  the  place  of  another.  The  most  exquisite 
poetical  conceptions,  images,  and  descriptions,  are  given 
with  such  brevity,  and  introduced  with  such  skill,  as  5 
merely  to  adorn,  without  loading  the  sense  they  accom- 
pany. Although  his  sails  are  purple  and  perfumed,  and 
his  prow  of  beaten  gold,  they  waft  him  on  his  voyage,  not 
less,  but  more  rapidly  and  directly  than  if  they  had  been 
composed  of  baser  materials.  All  his  excellences,  like  10 
those  of  Nature  herself,  are  thrown  out  together  ;  and, 
instead  of  interfering  with,  support  and  recommend  each 
other.  His  flowers  are  not  tied  up  in  garlands,  nor  his 
fruits  crushed  into  baskets  —  but  spring  living  from  the 
soil,  in  all  the  dew  and  freshness  of  youth  ;  while  the  15 
graceful  foliage  in  which  they  lurk,  and  the  ample 
branches,  the  rough  and  vigorous  stem,  and  the  wide- 
spreading  roots  on  which  they  depend,  are  present  along 
with  them,  and  share,  in  their  places,  the  equal  care  of 
their  Creator.  20 


RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 


Consisting  chiefly  of  Original  Letters,  Poems,  and  Critical  Observa- 
tions on  Scottish  Songs.  Collected  and  published  by  A".  //.  Cromek. 
8vo,  pp.  450.  London,  iSo8. 


BURNS  is  certainly  by  far  the  greatest  of  our  poetical 
prodigies — frpm  Stephen  Duck  down  to  Thomas  Der- 
mody.  They  are  forgotten  already  ;  or  only  remembered 
for  derision.  But  the  name  of  Burns,  if  we  are  not 
5  mistaken,  has  not  yet  "gathered  all  its  fame";  and  will 
endure  long  after  those  circumstances  are  forgotten 
which  contributed  to  its  first  notoriety.  So  much  indeed 
are  we  impressed  with  a  sense  of  his  merits,  that  we 
cannot  help  thinking  it  a  derogation  from  them  to 

10  consider  him  as  a  prodigy  at  all  ;  and  are  convinced  that 
he  will  never  be  rightly  estimated  as  a  poet,  till  that 
vulgar  wonder  be  entirely  repressed  which  was  raised  on 
his  having  been  a  ploughman.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that 
he  was  born  in  an  humble  station  ;  and  that  much  of  his 

15  early  life  was  devoted  to  severe  labour,  and  to  the 
society  of  his  fellow-labourers.  But  he  was  not  himself 
either  uneducated  or  illiterate ;  and  was  placed  in  a 
situation  more  favourable,  perhaps,  to  the  development 
of  great  poetical  talents,  than  any  other  which  could 

20  have  been  assigned  him.  He  was  taught,  at  a  very  early 
age,  to  read  and  write  ;  and  soon  after  acquired  a 
competent  knowledge  of  French,  together  with  the 
elements  of  Latin  and  Geometry.  His  taste  for  reading 


RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.  27 

was  encouraged  by  his  parents  and  many  of  his  asso- 
ciates ;  and,  before  he  had  ever  composed  a  single 
stanza,  he  was  not  only  familiar  with  many  prose  writers, 
but  far  more  intimately  acquainted  with  Pope,  Shake- 
speare, and  Thomson,  than  nine  tenths  of  the  youth  that  5 
now  leave  our  schools  for  the  university.  Those  authors, 
indeed,  with  some  old  collections  of  songs,  and  the  lives 
of  Hannibal  and  of  Sir  William  Wallace,  were  his 
h.ibitual  study  from  the  first  days  of  his  childhood  ;  and 
co-operating  with  the  solitude  of  his  rural  occupations,  10 
were  sufficient  to  rouse  his  ardent  and  ambitious  mind  to 
the  love  and  the  practice  of  poetry.  He  had  about  as 
much  scholarship,  in  short,  we  imagine,  as  Shakespeare  ; 
and  far  better  models  to  form  his  ear  to  harmony,  and 
train  his  fancy  to  graceful  invention.  15 

We  ventured,  on  a  former  occasion,  to  say  something 
of  the  effects  of  regular  education,  and  of  the  general 
diffusion  of  literature,  in  repressing  the  vigour  and 
originality  of  all  kinds  of  mental  exertion.  That  specu- 
lation was  perhaps  carried  somewhat  too  far  ;  but  if  the  20 
paradox  have  proof  any  where,  it  is  in  its  application  to 
poetry.  Among  well  educated  people,  the  standard 
writers  of  this  description  are  at  once  so  venerated  and 
so  familiar,  that  it  is  thought  equally  impossible  to  rival 
them,  as  to  write  verses  without  attempting  it.  If  there  25 
be  one  degree  of  fame  which  excites  emulation,  there  is 
another  which  leads  to  despair  :  Nor  can  we  conceive 
any  one  less  likely  to  be  added  to  the  short  list  of  original 
poets,  than  a  young  man  of  fine  fancy  and  delicate  taste, 
who  has  acquired  a  high  relish  for  poetry,  by  perusing  30 
the  most  celebrated  writers,  and  conversing  with  the 
most  intelligent  judges.  The  head  of  such  a  person  is 
filled,  of  course,  with  all  the  splendid  passages  of  ancient 
and  modern  authors,  and  with  the  fine  and  fastidious 


28  RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

remarks  which  have  been  made  even  on  those  passages. 
When  he  turns  his  eyes,  therefore,  on  his  own  conceptions 
or  designs,  they  can  scarcely  fail  to  appear  rude  and 
contemptible.  He  is  perpetually  haunted  and  depressed 
5  by  the  ideal  presence  of  those  great  masters,  and  their 
exacting  critics.  He  is  aware  to  what  comparisons  his 
productions  will  be  subjected  among  his  own  friends  and 
associates  ;  and  recollects  the  derision  with  which  so 
many  rash  adventurers  have  been  chased  back  to  their 

10  obscurity.  Thus,  the  merit  of  his  great  predecessors 
chills,  instead  of  encouraging  his  ardour  ;  and  the 
illustrious  names  which  have  already  reached  to  the 
summit  of  excellence,  act  like  the  tall  and  spreading 
trees  of  the  forest,  which  overshadow  and  strangle  the 

15  saplings  which  may  have  struck  root  in  the  soil  below  — 
and  afford  efficient  shelter  to  nothing  but  creepers  and 
parasites. 

There   is,   no   doubt,  in   some  few  individuals,  "  that 
strong  divinity  of  soul  "   —  that  decided  and  irresistible 

20  vocation  to  glory,  which,  in  spite  of  all  these  obstructions, 
calls  out,  perhaps  once  or  twice  in  a  century,  a  bold  and 
original  poet  from  the  herd  of  scholars  and  academical 
literati.  But  the  natural  tendency  of  their  studies,  and 
by  far  their  most  common  effect,  is  to  repress  originality, 

25  and  discourage  enterprise  ;  and  either  to  change  those 
whom  nature  meant  for  poets,  into  mere  readers  of 
poetry,  or  to  bring  them  out  in  the  form  of  witty 
parodists,  or  ingenious  imitators.  Independent  of  the 
reasons  which  have  been  already  suggested,  it  will  perhaps 

30  be  found,  too,  that  necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention, 
in  this  as  well  as  in  the  more  vulgar  arts  ;  or,  at  least, 
that  inventive  genius  will  frequently  slumber  in  inaction, 
where  the  preceding  ingenuity  has  in  part  supplied  the 
wants  of  the  owner.  A  solitary  and  uninstructed  man, 


RELIQ.UES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.  29 

with  lively  feelings  and  an  inflammable  imagination,  will 
often  be  irresistibly  led  to  exercise  those  gifts,  and  to 
occupy  and  relieve  his  mind  in  poetical  composition  : 
But  if  his  education,  his  reading,  and  his  society  supply 
him  with  an  abundant  store  of  images  and  emotions,  he  5 
will  probably  think  but  little  of  those  internal  resources, 
and  feed  his  mind  contentedly  with  what  has  been 
provided  by  the  industry  of  others. 

To  say  nothing,  therefore,  of  the  distractions  and  the 
dissipation  of  mind  that  belong  to  the  commerce  of  the  10 
world,  nor  of  the  cares  of  minute  accuracy  and  high 
finishing  which  are  imposed  on  the  professed  scholar, 
there  seem  to  be  deeper  reasons  for  the  separation  of 
originality  and  accomplishment  ;  and  for  the  partiality 
which  has  led  poetry  to  choose  almost  all  her  prime  15 
favourites  among  the  recluse  and  uninstructed.  A  youth 
of  quick  parts,  in  short,  and  creative  fancy —  with  just  so 
much  reading  as  to  guide  his  ambition,  and  roughhew  his 
notions  of  excellence  —  if  his  lot  be  thrown  in  humble 
retirement,  where  he  has  no  reputation  to  lose,  and  20 
where  he  can  easily  hope  to  excel  all  that  he  sees  around 
him,  is  much  more  likely,  we  think,  to  give  himself  up  to 
poetry,  and  to  train  himself  to  habits  of  invention,  than  if 
he  had  been  encumbered  by  the  pretended  helps  of  ex- 
tended study  and  literary  society.  25 

If  these  observations  should  fail  to  strike  of  themselves, 
they  may  perhaps  derive  additional  weight  from  consider- 
ing the  very  remarkable  fact,  that  almost  all  the  great 
poets  of  every  country  have  appeared  in  an  early  stage  of 
their  history,  and  in  a  period  comparatively  rude  and  un-  3° 
lettered.  Homer  went  forth,  like  the  morning  star,  before 
the  dawn  of  literature  in  Greece,  and  almost  all  the  great 
and  sublime  poets  of  modern  Europe  are  already  between 
two  and  three  hundred  years  old.  Since  that  time, 


30  RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

although  books  and  readers,  and  opportunities  of  reading, 
are  multiplied  a  thousand  fold,  we  have  improved  chiefly 
in  point  and  terseness  of  expression,  in  the  art  of  raillery, 
and  in  clearness  and  simplicity  of  thought.  P'orce,  rich- 

5  ness,  and  variety  of  invention,  are  now  at  least  as  rare  as 
ever.  But  the  literature  and  refinement  of  the  age  does 
not  exist  at  all  for  a  rustic  and  illiterate  individual  ;  and, 
consequently,  the  present  time  is  to  him  what  the  rude 
times  of  old  were  to  the  vigorous  writers  which  adorned 

10  them. 

But  though,  for  these  and  for  other  reasons,  we  can 
see  no  propriety  in  regarding  the  poetry  of  Burns  chiefly 
as  the  wonderful  work  of  a  peasant,  and  thus  admiring  it 
much  in  the  same  way  as  if  it  had  been  written  with  his 

15  toes  ;  yet  there  are  peculiarities  in  his  works  which 
remind  us  of  the  lowness  of  his  origin,  and  faults  for 
which  the  defects  of  his  education  afford  an  obvious 
cause,  if  not  a  legitimate  apology.  In  forming  a  correct 
estimate  of  these  works,  it  is  necessary  to  take  into 

20  account  those  peculiarities. 

The  first  is,  the  undiciplined  harshness  and  acrimony 
of  his  invective.  The  great  boast  of  polished  life  is  the 
delicacy,  and  even  the  generosity  of  its  hostility — that 
quality  which  is  still  the  characteristic,  as  it  furnishes 

25  the  denomination,  of  a  gentleman  —  that  principle  which 
forbids  us  to  attack  the  defenceless,  to  strike  the  fallen, 
or  to  mangle  the  slain — and  enjoins  us,  in  forging  the 
shafts  of  satire,  to  increase  the  polish  exactly  as  we  add 
to  their  keenness  or  their  weight.  For  this,  as  well  as 

30  for  other  things,  we  are  indebted  to  chivalry  ;  and  of 
this  Burns  had  none.  His  ingenious  and  amiable  biogra- 
pher has  spoken  repeatedly  in  praise  of  his  talents  for 
satire  —  we  think,  with  a  most  unhappy  partiality.  His 
epigrams  and  lampoons  appear  to  us,  one  and  all, 


RELIQUES   OF  ROBERT  BURNS  31 

unworthy  of  him  ;  —  offensive  from  their  extreme  coarse- 
ness and  violence — and  contemptible  from  their  want  of 
wit  or  brilliancy.  They  seem  to  have  been  written,  not 
out  of  playful  malice  or  virtuous  indignation,  but  out  of 
fierce  and  ungovernable  anger.-  His  whole  raillery  con-  5 
sists  in  railing ;  and  his  satirical  vein  displays  itself 
chiefly  in  calling  names  and  in  swearing.  We  say  this 
mainly  with  a  reference  to  his  personalities.  In  many  of 
his  more  general  representations  of  life  and  manners, 
there  is  no  doubt  much  that  may  be  called  satirical,  10 
mixed  up  with  admirable  humour,  and  description  of 
inimitable  vivacity. 

There  is  a  similar  want  of  polish,  or  at  least  of  respect- 
fulness, in  the  general  tone  of  his  gallantry.  He  has 
written  with  more  passion,  perhaps,  and  more  variety  of  15 
natural  feeling,  on  the  subject  of  love,  than  any  other 
poet  whatever — but  with  a  fervour  that  is  sometimes 
indelicate,  and  seldom  accommodated  to  the  timidity  and 
"  sweet  austere  composure  "  of  women  of  refinement.  He 
has  expressed  admirably  the  feelings  of  an  enamoured  20 
peasant,  who,  however  refined  or  eloquent  he  may  be, 
always  approaches  his  mistress  on  a  footing  of  equality  ; 
but  has  never  caught  that  tone  of  chivalrous  gallantry 
which  uniformly  abases  itself  in  the  presence  of  the 
object  of  its  devotion.  Accordingly,  instead  of  suing  for  25 
a  smile,  or  melting  in  a  tear,  his  muse  deals  in  nothing 
but  locked  embraces  and  midnight  rencontres  ;  and,  even 
in  his  complimentary  effusions  to  ladies  of  the  highest 
rank,  is  for  straining  them  to  the  bosom  of  her  impetuous 
votary.  It  is  easy,  accordingly,  to  see  from  his  corres-  30 
pondence,  that  many  of  his  female  patronesses  shrunk 
from  the  vehement  familiarity  of  his  admiration  ;  and 
there  are  even  some  traits  in  the  volumes  before  us,  from 
which  we  can  gather,  that  he  resented  the  shyness  and 


32  RELIQUES   OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

estrangement  to  which  those  feelings  gave  rise,  with  at 
least  as  little  chivalry  as  he  had  shown  in  producing  them. 
But  the  leading  vice  in  Burns's  character,  and  the 
cardinal  deformity,  indeed,  of  all  his  productions,  was  his 
5  contempt,  or  affectation  of  contempt,  for  prudence, 
decency,  and  regularity  ;  and  his  admiration  of  thought- 
lessness, oddity,  and  vehement  sensibility; — his  belief, 
in  short,  in  the  dispensing  power  of  genius  and  social 
feeling,  in  all  matters  of  morality  and  common  sense. 

10  This  is  the  very  slang  of  the  worst  German  plays,  and 
the  lowest  of  our  town-made  novels  ;  nor  can  any  thing 
be  more  lamentable,  than  that  it  should  have  found  a 
patron  in  such  a  man  as  Burns,  and  communicated  to 
many  of  his  productions  a  character  of  immorality,  at 

15  once  contemptible  and  hateful.  It  is  but  too  true,  that 
men  of  the  highest  genius  have  frequently  been  hurried 
by  their  passions  into  a  violation  of  prudence  and  duty ; 
and  there  is  something  generous,  at  least,  in  the  apology 
which  their  admirers  may  make  for  them,  on  the  score  of 

20  their  keener  feelings  and  habitual  want  of  reflection. 
But  this  apology,  which  is  quite  unsatisfactory  in  the 
mouth  of  another,  becomes  an  insult  and  an  absurdity 
whenever  it  proceeds  from  their  own.  A  man  may  say 
of  his  friend,  that  h«  is  a  noble-hearted  fellow — too 

25  generous  to  be  just,  and  with  too  much  spirit  to  be 
always  prudent  and  regular.  But  he  cannot  be  allowed 
to  say  even  this  of  himself ;  and  still  less  to  represent 
himself  as  a  hairbrained  sentimental  soul,  constantly 
carried  away  by  fine  fancies  and  visions  of  love  and 

30  philanthropy,  and  born  to  confound  and  despise  the  cold- 
blooded sons  of  prudence  and  sobriety.  This  apology, 
indeed,  evidently  destroys  itself  :  For  it  shows  that  con- 
duct to  be  the  result  of  deliberate  system,  which  it  affects 
at  the  same  time  to  justify  as  the  fruit  of  mere  thought- 


RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS.  33 

lessness  and  casual  impulse.  Such  protestations,  there- 
fore, will  always  be  treated,  as  they  deserve,  not  only 
with  contempt,  but  with  incredulity  ;  and  their  magnani- 
mous authors  set  down  as  determined  profligates,  who 
seek  to  disguise  their  selfishness  under  a  name  somewhat  5 
less  revolting.  That  profligacy  is  almost  always  selfish- 
ness, and  that  the  excuse  of  impetuous  feeling  can  hardly 
ever  be  justly  pleaded  for  those  who  neglect  the  ordinary 
duties  of  life,  must  be  apparent,  we  think,  even  to  the 
least  reflecting  of  those  sons  of  fancy  and  song.  It  10 
requires  no  habit  of  deep  thinking,  nor  any  thing  more, 
indeed,  than  the  information  of  an  honest  heart,  to  per- 
ceive that  it  is  cruel  and  base  to.  spend,  in  vain  super- 
fluities, that  money  which  belongs  of  right  to  the  pale 
industrious  tradesman  and  his  famishing  infants  ;  or  that  15 
it  is  a  vile  prostitution  of  language,  to  talk  of  that  man's 
generosity  or  goodness  of  heart,  who  sits  raving  about 
friendship  and  philanthropy  in  a  tavern,  while  his  wife's 
heart  is  breaking  at  her  cheerless  fireside,  and  his  chil- 
dren pining  in  solitary  poverty.  20 

This  pitiful  cant  of  careless  feeling  and  eccentric 
genius,  accordingly,  has  never  found  much  favour  in  the 
eyes  of  English  sense  and  morality.  The  most  signal 
effect  which  it  ever  produced,  was  on  the  muddy  brains 
of  some  German  youth,  who  are  said  to  have  left  college  25 
in  a  body  to  rob  on  the  highway  :  because  Schiller  had 
represented  the  captain  of  a  gang  as  so  very  noble  a 
creature.  —  But  in  this  country,  we  believe,  a  predilection 
for  that  honourable  profession  must  have  preceded  this 
admiration  of  the  character.  The  style  we  have  been  30 
speaking  of,  accordingly,  is  now  the  heroics  only  of  the 
hulks  and  the  house  of  correction;  and  has  no  chance,  we 
suppose,  of  being  greatly  admired,  except  in  the  farewell 
speech  of  a  young  gentleman  preparing  for  Botany  Bay. 


34  RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

It  is  humiliating  to  think  how  deeply  Burns  has  fallen 
into  this  debasing  error.  He  is  perpetually  making  a 
parade  of  his  thoughtlessness,  inflammability,  and  impru- 
dence, and  talking  with  much  complacency  and  exultation 

5  of  the  offence  he  has  occasioned  to  the  sober  and  correct 
part  of  mankind.  This  odious  slang  infects  almost  all 
his  prose,  and  a  very  great  proportion  of  his  poetry  ;  and 
is,  we  are  persuaded,  the  chief,  if  not  the  only  source  of 
disgust  with  which,  in  spite  of  his  genius,  we  know  that 

10  he  is  regarded  by  many  very  competent  and  liberal 
judges.  His  apology,  too,  we  are  willing  to  believe,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  original  lowness  of  his  situation,  and  the 
slightness  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  world.  With  his 
talents  and  powers  of  observation,  he  could  not  have 

15  seen  much  of  the  beings  who  echoed  this  raving,  without 
feeling  for  them  that  distrust  and  contempt  which  would 
have  made  him  blush  to  think  he  had  ever  stretched  over 
them  the  protecting  shield  of  his  genius. 

Akin  to  this   most  lamentable  trait  of  vulgarity,  and 

20  indeed  in  some  measure  arising  out  of  it,  is  that  perpetual 
boast  of  his  own  independence,  which  is  obtruded  upon 
the  readers  of  Burns  in  almost  every  page  of  his  writings. 
The  sentiment  itself  is  noble,  and  it  is  often  finely 
expressed  ; — but  a  gentleman  would  only  have  expressed 

25  it  when  he  was  insulted  or  provoked  ;  and  would  never 
have  made  it  a  spontaneous  theme  to  those  friends  in 
whose  estimation  he  felt  that  his  honour  stood  clear.  It 
is  mixed  up,  too,  in  Burns  with  too  fierce  a  tone  of 
defiance,  and  indicates  rather  the  pride  of  a  sturdy 

30  peasant,  than  the  calm  and  natural  elevation  of  a 
generous  mind. 

The  last  of  the  symptoms  of  rusticity  which  we  think 
it  necessary  to  notice  in  the  works  of  this  extraordinary 
man,  is  that  frequent  mistake  of  mere  exaggeration  and 


RELIQUES   OF  ROBERT  BURXS.  35 

violence,  for  force  and  sublimity,  which  has  defaced  so 
much  of  his  prose  composition,  and  given  an  air  of 
heaviness  and  labour  to  a  good  deal  of  his  serious  poetry. 
The  truth  is,  that  his  forte  was  in  humour  and  in  pathos 
—  or  rather  in  tenderness  of  feeling  ;  and  that  he  has  5 
very  seldom  succeeded,  either  where  mere  wit  and 
sprightliness,  or  where  great  energy  and  weight  of  senti- 
ment were  requisite.  He  had  evidently  a  very  false  and 
crude  notion  of  what  constituted  strength  of  writing ;  and 
instead  of  that  simple  and  brief  directness  which  stamps  10 
the  character  of  vigour  upon  every  syllable,  has  generally 
had  recourse  to  a  mere  accumulation  of  hyperbolical 
expressions,  which  encumber  the  diction  instead  of 
exalting  it,  and  show  the  determination  to  be  impressive, 
without  the  power  of  executing  it.  This  error  also  we  15 
are  inclined  to  ascribe  entirely  to  the  defects  of  his 
education.  The  value  of  simplicity  in  the  expression  of 
passion,  is  a  lesson,  we  believe,  of  nature  and  of  genius  ; 
— but  its  importance  in  mere  grave  and  impressive  writing, 
is  one  of  the  latest  discoveries  of  rhetorical  experience.  20 

With  the  allowances  and  exceptions  we  have  now 
stated,  we  think  Burns  entitled  to  the  rank  of  a  great  and 
original  genius.  He  has  in  all  his  compositions  great 
force  of  conception  ;  and  great  spirit  and  animation  in 
its  expression.  He  has  taken  a  large  range  through  the  25 
region  of  Fancy,  and  naturalized  himself  in  almost  all 
her  climates.  He  has  great  humour — great  powers  of 
description  —  great  pathos  —  and  great  discrimination  of 
character.  Almost  every  thing  that  he  says  has  spirit 
and  originality  ;  and  every  thing  that  he  says  well,  is  30 
characterized  by  a  charming  facility,  which  gives  a  grace 
even  to  occasional  rudeness,  and  communicates  to  the 
reader  a  delightful  sympathy  with  the  spontaneous  soar- 
ing and  conscious  inspiration  of  the  poet. 


36  KELIQUES   OF  ROBERT  BURNS. 

Considering  the  reception  which  these  works  have  met 
with  from  the  public,  and  the  long  period  during  which 
the  greater  part  of  them  have  been  in  their  possession,  it 
may  appear  superfluous  to  say  any  thing  as  to  their 
5  characteristic  or  peculiar  merit.  Though  the  ultimate 
judgment  of  the  public,  however,  be  always  sound,  or  at 
least  decisive  as  to  its  general  result,  it  is  not  always 
very  apparent  upon  what  grounds  it  has  proceeded  ;  nor 
in  consequence  of  what,  or  in  spite  of  what,  it  has  been 

10  obtained.  In  Burns's  works  there  is  much  to  censure,  as 
well  as  much  to  praise  ;  and  as  time  has  not  yet  separated 
his  ore  from  its  dross,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  state,  in 
a  very  general  way,  what  we  presume  to  anticipate  as  the 
result  of  this  separation.  Without  pretending  to  enter  at 

15  all  into  the  comparative  merit  of  particular  passages,  we 
may  venture  to  lay  it  down  as  our  opinion  —  that  his 
poetry  is  far  superior  to  his  prose  ;  that  his  Scottish 
compositions  are  greatly  to  be  preferred  to  his  English 
ones  ;  and  that  his  Songs  will  probably  outlive  all  his 

20  other  productions.  A  very  few  remarks  on  each  of  these 
subjects  will  comprehend  almost  all  that  we  have  to  say 
of  the  volumes  now  before  us. 


•   THE  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE. 


A  Poem  by  Walter  Scott.     Second  Edition.     8vo,  pp.  434.    1810. 


MR.  SCOTT,  though  living  in  an  age  unusually  prolific 
of  original  poetry,  has  manifestly  outstripped  all  his 
competitors  in  the  race  of  popularity  ;  and  stands 
already  upon  a  height  to  which  no  other  writer  has 
attained  in  the  memory  of  any  one  now  alive.  We  5 
doubt,  indeed,  whether  any  English  poet  ever  had  so 
many  of  his  books  sold,  or  so  many  of  his  verses  read 
and  admired  by  such  a  multitude  of  persons  in  so  short 
a  time.  "We  are  credibly  informed  that  nearly  thirty 
thousand  copies  of  "  The  Lay  "  have  been  already  10 
disposed  of  in  this  country  ;  and  that  the  demand  for 
Marmion,  and  the  poem  now  before  us,  has  been  still 
more  considerable,  —  a  circulation  we  believe,  altogether 
without  example,  in  the  case  of  a  bulky  work,  not 
addressed  to  the  bigotry  of  the  mere  mob,  either  religious  15 
or  political. 

A  popularity  so  universal  is  a  pretty  sure  proof  of 
extraordinary  merit,  — -  a  far  surer  one,  we  readily  admit, 
than  would  be  afforded  by  any  praises  of  ours  :  and, 
therefore,  though  we  pretend  to  be  privileged,  in  ordinary  20 
cases,  to  foretell  the  ultimate  reception  of  all  claims  on 
public  admiration,  our  function  may  be  thought  to  cease, 
where  the  event  is  already  so  certain  and  conspicuous. 
As  it  is  a  sore  thing,  however,  to  be  deprived  of  our 
privileges  on  so  important  an  occasion,  we  hope  to  be  25 


38  THE  LADY  OF   THE   LAKE. 

pardoned  for  insinuating,  that,  even  in  such  a  case,  the 
office  of  the  critic  may  not  be  altogether  superfluous. 
Though  the  success  of  the  author  be  decisive,  and  even 
likely  to  be  permanent,  it  still  may  not  be  without  its  use 
5  to  point  out,  in  consequence  of  what,  and  in  spite  of 
what,  he  has  succeeded  ;  nor  altogether  uninstructive  to 
trace  the  precise  limits  of  the  connection  which,  even  in 
this  dull  world,  indisputably  subsists  between  success  and 
desert,  and  to  ascertain  how  far  unexampled  popularity 

10  does  really  imply  unrivalled  talent. 

As  it  is  the  object  of  poetry  to  give  pleasure,  it  would 
seem  to  be  a  pretty  safe  conclusion,  that  that  poetry 
must  be  the  best  which  gives  the  greatest  pleasure  to  the 
greatest  number  of  persons.  Yet  we  must  pause  a  little, 

15  before  we  give  our  assent  to  so  plausible  a  proposition. 
It  would  not  be  quite  correct,  we  fear,  to  say  that  those 
are  invariably  the  best  judges  who  are  most  easily 
pleased.  The  great  multitude,  even  of  the  reading  world, 
must  necessarily  be  uninstructed  and  injudicious  ;  and 

20  will  frequently  be  found,  not  only  to  derive  pleasure  from 
what  is  worthless  in  finer  eyes,  but  to  be  quite  insensible 
to  those  beauties  which  afford  the  most  exquisite  delight 
to  more  cultivated  understandings.  True  pathos  and 
sublimity  will  indeed  charm  every  one  :  but,  out  of  this 

25  lofty  sphere,  we  are  pretty  well  convinced,  that  the  poetry 
which  appears  most  perfect  to  a  very  refined  taste,  will 
not  often  turn  out  to  be  very  popular  poetry. 

This,  indeed,  is  saying  nothing  more,  than  that  the 
ordinary  readers  of  poetry  have  not  a  very  refined  taste  ; 

30  and  that  they  are  often  insensible  to  many  of  its  highest 
beauties,  while  they  still  more  frequently  mistake  its 
imperfections  for  excellence.  The  fact,  when  stated  in 
this  simple  way,  commonly  excites  neither  opposition  nor 
surprise  :  and  yet,  if  it  be  asked,  why  the  taste  of  a  few 


THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE.  39 

individuals,  who  do  not  perceive  beauty  where  many  others 
perceive  it,  should  be  exclusively  dignified  with  the  name 
of  a  good  taste  ;  or  why  poetry,  which  gives  pleasure  to 
a  very  great  number  of  readers,  should  be  thought 
inferior  to  that  which*  pleases  a  much  smaller  number,  —  5 
the  answer,  perhaps,  may  not  be  quite  so  ready  as  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  alacrity  of  our  assent  to  the 
first  proposition.  That  there  is  a  good  answer  to  be 
given,  however,  we  entertain  no  doubt  :  and  if  that 
which  we  are  about  to  offer  should  not  appear  very  clear  10 
or  satisfactory,  we  must  submit  to  have  it  thought,  that 
the  fault  is  not  altogether  in  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  should  be  remembered,  that 
though  the  taste  of  very  good  judges  is  necessarily  the 
taste  of  a  few,  it  is  implied,  in  their  description,  that  they  15 
are  persons  eminently  qualified,  by  natural  sensibility, 
and  long  experience  and  reflection,  to  perceive  all  beauties 
that  really  exist,  as  well  as  to  settle  the  relative  value  and 
importance  of  all  the  different  sorts  of  beauty  ;  —  they 
are  in  that  very  state,  in  short,  to  which  all  who  are  in  20 
any  degree  capable  of  tasting  those  refined  pleasures 
would  certainly  arrive,  if  their  sensibility  were  increased, 
and  their  experience  and  reflection  enlarged.  It  is 
difficult,  therefore,  in  following  out  the  ordinary  analogies 
of  language,  to  avoid  considering  them  as  in  the  right,  25 
and  calling  their  taste  the  true  and  the  just  one  ;  when 
it  appears  that  it  is  such  as  is  uniformly  produced  by 
the  cultivation  of  those  faculties  upon  which  all  our 
perceptions  of  taste  so  obviously  depend. 

It  is  to  be  considered  also,  that  though  it  be  the  end  30 
of  poetry  to  please,  one   of  the  parties  whos*  pleasure, 
and  whose  notions  of  excellence,  will  always  be  primarily 
consulted  in  its  composition,  is  the  poet  himself  ;  and  as 
he  must  necessarily  be  more  cultivated  than   the  great 


4°  THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE. 

body  of  his  readers,  the  presumption  is,  that  he  will 
always  belong,  comparatively  speaking,  to  the  class  of 
good  judges,  and  endeavour,  consequently,  to  produce 
that  sort  of  excellence  which  is  likely  to  meet  with  their 

5  approbation.  When  authors,  therefore,  and  those  of 
whose  suffrages  authors  are  most  ambitious,  thus  conspire 
to  fix  upon  the  same  standard  of  what  is  good  in  taste 
and  composition,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  it  should  come  to 
bear  this  name  in  society,  in  preference  to  what  might 

10  afford  more  pleasure  to  individuals  of  less  influence. 
Besides  all  this,  it  is  obvious  that  it  must  be  infinitely 
more  difficult  to  produce  any  thing  comformable  to  this 
exalted  standard,  than  merely  to  fall  in  with  the  current 
of  popular  taste.  To  attain  the  former  object,  it  is 

15  necessary,  for  the  most  part,  to  understand  thoroughly 
all  the  feelings  and  associations  that  are  modified  or 
created  by  cultivation  :  —  To  accomplish  the  latter,  it 
will  often  be  sufficient  merely  to  have  observed  the  course 
of  familiar  preferences.  Success,  however,  is  rare,  in 

20  proportion  as  it  is  difficult  ;  and  it  is  needless  to  say,  what 
a  vast  addition  rarity  makes  to  value,  —  or  how  exactly  our 
admiration  at  success  is  proportioned  to  our  sense  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  undertaking. 

Such   seem   to  be   the   most   general    and    immediate 

25  causes  of  the  apparent  paradox,  of  reckoning  that  which 
pleases  the  greatest  number  as  inferior  to  that  which 
pleases  the  few  ;  and  such  the  leading  grounds  for  fixing 
the  standard  of  excellence,  in  a  question  of  mere  feeling 
and  gratification,  by  a  different  rule  than  that  of  the 

3°  quantity  of  gratification  produced.  With  regard  to  some 
of  the  fine«.rts — for  the  distinction  between  popular  and 
actual  merit  obtains  in  them  all  —  there  are  no  other 
reasons,  perhaps,  to  be  assigned  ;  and,  in  Music  for 
example,  when  we  have  said  that  it  is  the  authority  of 


THE  LADY  OF   THE   LAKE.  41 

those  who  are  best  qualified  by  nature  and  study,  and 
the  difficulty  and  rarity  of  the  attainment,  that  entitles 
certain  exquisite  performances  to  rank  higher  than  others 
that  give  far  more  general  delight,  we  have  probably  said 
all  that  can  be  said  in  explanation  of  this  mode  of  5 
speaking  and  judging.  In  poetry,  however,  and  in 
some  other  departments,  this  familiar,  though  somewhat 
extraordinary  rule  of  estimation,  is  justified  by  other 
considerations. 

As  it  is  the  cultivation  of  natural  and  perhaps  universal  10 
capacities,  that  produces  that  refined  taste  which  takes 
away  our  pleasure  in  vulgar  excellence,  so,  it  is  to  be 
considered,  that  there  is   an   universal   tendency  to  the 
propagation  of  such  a  taste  ;  and  that,  in  times  tolerably 
favourable    to    human    happiness,   there    is    a    continual  15 
progress  and  improvement  in  this,  as  in  the  other  faculties 
of  nations  and  large  assemblages  of  men.     The  number 
of    intelligent    judges    may   therefore    be    regarded    as 
perpetually  on  the  increase.     The  inner  circle,  to  which 
the  poet  delights  chiefly  to  pitch  his  voice,  is  perpetually  20 
enlarging  ;    and,  looking  to  that  great  futurity  to  which 
his  ambition  is  constantly  directed,  it  may  be  found,  that 
the  most  refined  style   of  composition   to  which  he  can 
attain,  will   be,    at   the    last,  the    most  extensively  and 
permanently  popular.     This   holds  true,   we  think,   with  25 
regard  to  all  the  productions  of  art  that  are  open  to  the 
inspection  of  any  considerable  part  of  the  community  ; 
but,  with  regard  to  poetry  in    particular,  there    is    one 
circumstance  to  be  attended  to,  that  renders  this  conclu- 
sion peculiarly  safe,  and  goes  far  indeed  to  reconcile  the  30 
taste    of    the    multitude    with    that   of    more    cultivated 
judges. 

As  it  seems  difficult  to  conceive  that  mere  cultivation 
should    either    absolutely  create    or   utterly  destroy  any 


42  THE  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE. 

natural  capacity  of  enjoyment,  it  is  not  easy  to  suppose, 
that  the  qualities  which  delight  the  uninstructed  should 
be  substantially  different  from  those  which  give  pleasure 
to  the  enlightened.  They  may  be  arranged  according  to 
5  a  different  scale,  —  and  certain  shades  and  accompani- 
ments may  be  more  or  less  indispensable  ;  but  the  quali- 
ties in  a  poem  that  give  most  pleasure  to  the  refined  and 
fastidious  critic,  are  in  substance,  we  believe,  the  very 
same  that  delight  the  most  injudicious  of  its  admirers:  — 

10  and  the  very  wide  difference  which  exists  between  their 
usual  estimates,  may  be  in  a  great  degree  accounted  for, 
by  considering,  that  the  one  judges  absolutely,  and  the 
other  relatively — that  the  one  attends  only  to  the  intrin- 
sic qualities  of  the  work,  while  the  other  refers  more 

15  immediately  to  the  merit  of  the  author.  The  most  popular 
passages  in  popular  poetry,  are  in  fact,  for  the  most  part, 
very  beautiful  and  striking  ;  yet  they  are  very  often  such 
passages  as  could  never  be  ventured  on  by  any  writer 
who  aimed  at  the  praise  of  the  judicious  ;  and  this,  for 

20  the  obvious  reason,  that  they  are  trite  and  hackneyed, — 
that  they  have  been  repeated  till  they  have  lost  all  grace 
and  propriety,  —  and,  instead  of  exalting  the  imagination 
by  the  impression  of  original  genius  or  creative  fancy, 
only  nauseate  and  offend,  by  the  association  of  paltry 

25  plagiarism  and  impudent  inanity.  It  is  only,  however, 
on  those  who  have  read  and  remembered  the  original 
passages,  and  their  better  imitations,  that  this  effect 
is  produced.  To  the  ignorant  and  the  careless,  the 
twentieth  imitation  has  all  the  charm  of  an  original  ;  and 

30  that  which  oppresses  the  more  experienced  reader  with 
weariness  and  disgust,  rouses  them  with  all  the  force  and 
vivacity  of  novelty.  It  is  not  then,  because  the  orna- 
ments of  popular  poetry  are  deficient  in  intrinsic  worth 
and  beauty,  that  they  are  slighted  by  the  critical  reader, 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE.  43 

but  because  he  at  once  recognises  them  to  be  stolen,  and 
perceives  that  they  are  arranged  without  taste  or  con- 
gruity.  In  his  indignation  at  the  dishonesty,  and  his 
contempt  for  the  poverty  of  the  collector,  he  overlooks 
altogether  the  value  of  what  he  has  collected,  or  remem-  5 
bers  it  only  as  an  aggravation  of  his  offence,  —  as  con- 
verting larceny  into  sacrilege,  and  adding  the  guilt  of 
profanation  to  the  folly  of  unsuitable  finery.  There  are 
other  features,  no  doubt,  that  distinguish  the  idols  of 
vulgar  admiration  from  the  beautiful  exemplars  of  pure  10 
taste  ;  but  this  is  so  much  the  most  characteristic  and 
remarkable,  that  we  know  no  way  in  which  we  could  so 
shortly  describe  the  poetry  that  pleases  the  multitude, 
and  displeases  the  select  few,  as  by  saying  that  it  con- 
sisted of  all  the  most  known  and  most  brilliant  parts  of  15 
the  most  celebrated  authors, — of  a  splendid  and  unmean- 
ing accumulation  of  those  images  and  phrases  which  had 
long  charmed  every  reader  in  the  works  of  their  original 
inventors. 

The  justice  of  these  remarks  will  probably  be  at  once  20 
admitted  by  all  who  have  attended  to  the  history  and 
effects  of  what  may  be  called  Poetical  diction  in  general, 
or  even  of  such  particular  phrases  and  epithets  as  have 
been  indebted  to  their  beauty  for  too  great  a  notoriety. 
Our  associations  with  all  this  class  of  expressions,  which  25 
have  become  trite  only  in  consequence  of  their  intrinsic 
excellence,   now   suggest    to   us   no   ideas    but   those   of 
schoolboy  imbecility  and  childish  affectation.      We  look 
upon  them   merely  as   the    common,   hired,   and  tawdry 
trappings  of  all  who  wish  to   put  on,  for  the  hour,  the  30 
masquerade   habit   of  poetry;    and,  instead  of  receiving 
from  them  any  kind  of  delight  or  emotion,  do  not  even 
distinguish  or  attend  to  the  signification  of  the  words  of 
which  they  consist.      The  ear  is   so   palled  with    their 


44  THE  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE. 

repetition,  and  so  accustomed  to  meet  with  them  as  the 
habitual  expletives  of  the  lowest  class  of  versifiers,  that 
they  come  at  last  to  pass  over  it  without  exciting  any 
sort  of  conception  whatever,  and  are  not  even  so  much 
5  attended  to  as  to  expose  their  most  gross  incoherence  or 
inconsistency  to  detection.  It  is  of  this  quality  that 
Swift  has  availed  himself  in  so  remarkable  a  manner,  in 
his  famous  "  Song  by  a  person  of  quality,"  which  consists 
entirely  in  a  selection  of  some  of  the  most  trite  and  well- 

10  sounding  phrases  and  epithets  in  the  poetical  lexicon  of 
the  time,  strung  together  without  any  kind  of  meaning  or 
consistency,  and  yet  so  disposed,  as  to  have  been  perused, 
perhaps  by  one  half  of  their  readers,  without  any  suspi- 
cion of  the  deception.  Most  of  those  phrases,  however, 

15  which  had  thus  become  sickening,  and  almost  insignificant, 
to  the  intelligent  readers  of  poetry  in  the  days  of  Queen 
Anne,  are  in  themselves  beautiful  and  expressive,  and,  no 
doubt,  retain  much  of  their  native  grace  in  those  ears 
that  have  not  been  alienated  by  their  repetition. 

20  But  it  is  not  merely  from  the  use  of  much  excellent 
diction,  that  a  modern  poet  is  thus  debarred  by  the 
lavishness  of  his  predecessors.  There  is  a  certain  range 
of  subjects  and  characters,  and  a  certain  manner  and 
tone,  which  were  probably,  in  their  origin,  as  graceful 

25  and  attractive,  which  have  been  proscribed  by  the  same 

dread  of  imitation.     It  would  be  too  long  to  enter,  in  this 

place,  into  any  detailed  examination  of  the  peculiarities 

—  originating  chiefly  in  this  source  —  which  distinguish 

ancient  from  modern  poetry.     It  may  be  enough  just  to 

30  remark,  that,  as  the  elements  of  poetical  emotion  are 
necessarily  limited,  so  it  was  natural  for  those  who  first 
sought  to  excite  it,  to  avail  themselves  of  those  subjects, 
situations,  and  images,  that  were  most  obviously  calcu- 
lated to  produce  that  effect ;  and  to  assist  them  by  the 


THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE.  45 

use  of   all   those   aggravating   circumstances    that   most 
readily  occurred  as  likely  to  heighten  their  operation.     In 
this  way,  they  may  be  said  to>  have  got  possession  of  all 
the  choice  materials  of  their  art  ;  and,  working  without 
fear  of  comparisons,  fell  naturally  into  a  free  and  grace-    5 
ful  st^le  of  execution,  at  the  same  time  that  the  profusion 
of   their  resources    made   them   somewhat  careless   and 
inexpert  in  their  application.     After-poets  were  in  a  very 
different  situation.      They  could  neither   take  the  most 
natural   and  general  topics  of  interest,  nor  treat  them  10 
with  the  ease  and  indifference  of  those  who  had  the  whole 
store  at  their  command  —  because  this  was  precisely  what 
had  been   already  done   by  those  who  had  gone  before 
them  :  And  they  were  therefore  put  upon  various  expedi- 
ents for  attaining  their  object,  and  yet  preserving  their  15 
claim  to  originality.     Some  of  them  accordingly  set  them- 
selves   to    observe    and    delineate  both    characters    and 
external  objects  with  greater  minuteness  and  fidelity,— 
and    others    to    analyse    more    carefully    the    mingling 
passions  of  the  heart,  and  to  feed  and  cherish   a  more  20 
limited   train    of   emotion,  through   a  longer   and    more 
artful  succession  of  incidents,  —  while  a  third   sort  dis- 
torted both  nature  and  passion,  according  to  some  fan- 
tastical   theory  of   their   own  ;    or  took  such   a  narrow 
corner  of  each,  and  dissected  it  with  such  curious  and  25 
microscopic  accuracy,  that  its  original  form  was  no  longer 
discernible  by  the  eyes  of  the  uninstructed.     In  this  way 
we  think  that  modern  poetry  has  both  been  enriched  with 
more  exquisite  pictures  and  deeper  and  more  sustained 
strains  of  pathetic,  than  were  known  to  the  less  elaborate  30 
artists  of  antiquity  ;  at  the  same  time  that  it  has  been 
defaced  with  more  affectation,  and  loaded  with  far  more 
intricacy.     But  whether  they  failed  or  succeeded,  —  and 
whether  they  distinguished  themselves  from  their  prede- 


46  THE   LADY   OF   THE   LAKE. 

cessors  by  faults  or  by  excellences,  the  later  poets,  we 
conceive,  must  be  admitted  to  have  almost  always  written 
in  a  more  constrained  and  narrow  manner  than  their 
originals,  and  to  have  departed  farther  from  what  was 

5  obvious,  easy,  and  natural.  Modern  poetry,  in  this 
respect,  may  be  compared,  perhaps,  without  any^great 
impropriety,  to  modern  sculpture.  It  is  greatly  inferior 
to  the  ancient  in  freedom,  grace,  and  simplicity ;  but,  in 
return,  it  frequently  possesses  a  more  decided  expression  ; 

10  and  more  fine  finishing  of  less  suitable  embellishments. 

Whatever  may  be  gained  or  lost,  however,  by  this 
change  of  manner,  it  is  obvious,  that  poetry  must  become 
less  popular  by  means  of  it:  For  the  most  natural  and 
obvious  manner,  is  always  the  most  taking; — and  what- 

15  ever  costs  the  author  much  pains  and  labour,  is  usually 
found  to  require  a  corresponding  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
reader,  —  which  all  readers  are  not  disposed  to  make. 
That  they  who  seek  to  be  original  by  means  of  affecta- 
tion, should  revolt  more  by  their  affectation  than  they 

20  attract  by  their  originality,  is  just  and  natural;  but  even 
the  nobler  devices  that  win  the  suffrages  of  the  judicious 
by  their  intrinsic  beauty,  as  well  as  their  novelty,  are  apt 
to  repel  the  multitude,  and  to  obstruct  the  popularity  of 
some  of  the  most  exquisite  productions  of  genius.  The 

25  beautiful  but  minute  delineations  of  such  admirable 
observers  as  Crabbe  or  Cowper,  are  apt  to  appear  tedious 
to  those  who  take  little  interest  in  their  subjects,  and 
have  no  concern  about  their  art ;  —  and  the  refined,  deep, 
and  sustained  pathetic  of  Campbell,  is  still  more  apt  to 

30  be  mistaken  for  monotony  and-languor  by  those  who  are 
either  devoid  of  sensibility,  or  impatient  of  quiet  reflec- 
tion. The  most  popular  style  undoubtedly  is  that  which 
has  great  variety  and  brilliancy,  rather  than  exquisite 
finish  in  its  images  and  descriptions ;  and  which  touches 


THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE.  47 

lightly  on  many  passions,  without  raising  any  so  high  as 
to  transcend  the  comprehension  of  ordinary  mortals  — 
or  dwelling  on  it  so  long  as  to  exhaust  their  patience. 

Whether  Mr.  Scott  holds  the  same  opinion  with  us 
upon  these  matters,  and  has  intentionally  conformed  his  5 
practice  to  this  theory,  —  or  whether  the  peculiarities  in 
his  compositions  have  been  produced  merely  by  following 
out  the  natural  bent  of  his  genius,  we  do  not  presume  to 
determine  :  But,  that  he  has  actually  made  use  of  all  our 
recipes  for  popularity,  we  think  very  evident ;  and  con-  10 
ceive,  that  few  things  are  more  curious  than  the  singular 
skill,  or  good  fortune,  with  which  he  has  reconciled  his 
claims  on  the  favour  of  the  multitude,  with  his  preten- 
sions to  more  select  admiration.  Confident  in  the  force 
and  originality  of  his  own  genius,  he  has  not  been  afraid  15 
to  avail  himself  of  common-places  both  of  diction  and  of 
sentiment,  whenever  they  appeared  to  be  beautiful  or 
impressive,  —  using  them,  however,  at  all  times,  with  the 
skill  and  spirit  of  an  inventor ;  and,  quite  certain  that  he 
could  not  be  mistaken  for  a  plagiarist  or  imitator,  he  has  20 
made  free  use  of  that  great  treasury  of  characters,  images, 
and  expressions,  which  had  been  accumulated  by  the 
most  celebrated  of  his  predecessors,  —  at  the  same  time 
that  the  rapidity  of  his  transitions,  the  novelty  of  his 
combinations,  and  the  spirit  and  variety  of  his  own  25 
thoughts  and  inventions,  show  plainly  that  he  was  a 
borrower  from  anything  but  poverty,  and  took  only  what 
he  would  have  given,  if  he  had  been  born  in  an  earlier 
generation.  The  great  secret  of  his  popularity,  however, 
and  the  leading  characteristic  of  his  poetry,  appear  to  us  30 
to  consist  evidently  in  this,  that  he  has  made  more  use 
of  common  topics,  images,  and  expressions,  than  any 
original  poet  of  later  times  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  dis- 
played more  genius  and  originality  than  any  recent 


48  THE  LADY  OF   THE   LAKE. 

author  who  has  worked  in  the  same  materials.  By  the 
latter  peculiarity,  he  has  entitled  himself  to  the  admira- 
tion of  every  description  of  readers ;  —  by  the  former,  he 
is  recommended  in  an  especial  manner  to  the  inexperi- 
5  enced  —  at  the  hazard  of  some  little  offence  to  the  more 
cultivated  and  fastidious. 

In  the  choice  of  his  subjects,  for  example,  he  does 
not  attempt  to  interest  merely  by  fine  observations  or 
pathetic  sentiment,  but  takes  the  assistance  of  a  story, 

10  and  enlists  the  reader's  curiosity  among  his  motives  for 
attention.  Then  his  characters  are  all  selected  from  the 
most  common  dramatis  persona  of  poetry  ;  —  kings,  war- 
riors, knights,  outlaws,  nuns,  minstrels,  secluded  damsels, 
wizards,  and  true  lovers.  He  never  ventures  to  carry  us 

15  into  the  cottage  of  the  modern  peasant,  like  Crabbe  or 
Cowper  ;  nor  into  the  bosom  of  domestic  privacy,  like 
Campbell  ;  nor  among  creatures  of  the  imagination,  like 
Southey  or  Darwin.  Such  personages,  we  readily  admit, 
are  not  in  themselves  so  interesting  or  striking  as  those 

20  to  whom  Mr.  Scott  has  devoted  himself  ;  but  they  are 
far  less  familiar  in  poetry — and  are  therefore  more  likely, 
perhaps,  to  engage  the  attention  of  those  to  whom  poetry 
is  familiar.  In  the  management  of  the  passions,  again, 
Mr.  Scott  appears  to  us  to  have  pursued  the  same 

25  popular,  and  comparatively  easy  course.  He  has  raised 
all  the  most  familiar  and  poetical  emotions,  by  the  most 
obvious  aggravations,  and  in  the  most  compendious  and 
judicious  ways.  He  has  dazzled  the  reader  with  the 
splendour,  and  even  warmed  him  with  the  transient  heat 

30  of  various  affections  ;  but  he  has  nowhere  fairly  kindled 
him  with  enthusiasm,  or  melted  him  into  tenderness. 
Writing  for  the  world  at  large,  he  has  wisely  abstained 
from  attempting  to  raise  any  passion  to  a  height  to  which 
worldly  people  could  not  be  transported  ;  and  contented 


THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE.  49 

himself  with  giving  his  reader  the  chance  of  feeling,  as  a 
brave,  kind,  and  affectionate  gentlemen  must  often  feel 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  his  existence,  without  trying  to 
breathe  into  him  either  that  lofty  enthusiasm  which  dis- 
dains the  ordinary  business  and  amusements  of  life,  or  5 
that  quiet  and  deep  sensibility  which  unfits  for  most  of 
its  pursuits.  With  regard  to  diction  and  imagery,  too,  it 
is  quite  obvious  that  Mr.  Scott  has  not  aimed  at  writing 
either  in  a  very  pure  or  a  very  consistent  style.  He 
seems  to  have  been  anxious  only  to  strike,  and  to  be  10 
easily  and  universally  understood  ;  and,  for  this  purpose, 
to  have  culled  the  most  glittering  and  conspicuous  ex- 
pressions of  the  most  popular  authors,  and  to  have 
interwoven  them  in  splendid  confusion  with  his  own  ner- 
vous diction  and  irregular  versification.  Indifferent  15 
whether  he  coins  or  borrows,  and  drawing  with  equal 
freedom  on  his  memory  and  his  imagination,  he  goes 
boldly  forward,  in  full  reliance  on  a  never-failing 
abundance  ;  and  dazzles,  with  his  richness  and  variety, 
even  those  who  are  most  apt  to  be  offended  with  his  20 
glare  and  irregularity.  There  is  nothing,  in  Mr.  Scott,  of 
the  severe  and  majestic  style  of  Milton  —  or  of  the  terse 
and  fine  composition  of  Pope  —  or  of  the  elaborate 
elegance  and  melody  of  Campbell  —  or  even  of  the 
flowing  and  redundant  diction  of  Southey.  —  But  there  is  25 
a  medley  of  bright  images  and  glowing  words,  set  care- 
lessly and  loosely  together  — a  diction,  tinged  succes- 
sively with  the  careless  richness  of  Shakespeare,  the 
harshness  and  antique  simplicity  of  the  old  romances, 
the  homeliness  of  vulgar  ballads  and  anecdotes,  and  f> 
the  sentimental  glitter  of  the  most  modern  poetry,  — 
passing  from  the  borders  of  the  ludicrous  to  those  of  the 
sublime  —  alternately  minute  and  energetic  —  sometimes 
artificial,  and  frequently  negligent  —  but  always  full  of 


50  THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE. 

spirit  and  vivacity,  —  abounding  in  images  that  are 
striking,  at  first  sight,  to  minds  of  every  contexture  — 
and  never  expressing  a  sentiment  which  it  can  cost  the 
most  ordinary  reader  any  exertion  to  comprehend. 
5  Such  seem  to  be  the  leading  qualities  that  have  con- 
tributed to  Mr.  Scott's  popularity  ;  and  as  some  of  them 
are  obviously  of  a  kind  to  diminish  his  merit  in  the  eyes 
of  more  fastidious  judges,  it  is  but  fair  to  complete  this 
view  of  his  peculiarities  by  a  hasty  notice  of  such  of  them 

10  as  entitle  him  to  unqualified  admiration  ;  —  and  here  it  is 
impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  that  vivifying  spirit  of 
strength  and  animation  which  pervades  all  the  inequali- 
ties of  his  composition,  and  keeps  constantly  on  the  mind 
of  the  reader  the  impression  of  great  power,  spirit  and 

15  intrepidity.  There  is  nothing  cold,  creeping,  or  feeble, 
in  all  Mr.  Scott's  poetry;  —  no  laborious  littleness,  or 
puling  classical  affectation.  He  has  his  failures,  indeed, 
like  other  people  ;  but  he  always  attempts  vigorously  : 
and  never  fails  in  his  immediate  object,  without  accom- 

20  plishing  something  far  beyond  the  reach  of  an  ordinary 
writer.  Even  when  he  wanders  from  the  paths  of  pure 
taste,  he  leaves  behind  him  the  footsteps  of  a  powerful 
genius  ;  and  moulds  the  most  humble  of  his  materials 
into  a  form  worthy  of  a  nobler  substance.  Allied  to  this 

25  inherent  vigour  and  animation,  and  in  a  great  degree 
derived  from  it,  is  that  air  of  facility  and  freedom  which 
adds  so  peculiar  a  grace  to  most  of  Mr.  Scott's  compo- 
sitions. There  is  certainly  no  living  poet  whose  works 
seem  to  come  from  him  with  so  much  ease,  or  who  so 

v>  seldom  appears  to  labour,  even  in  the  most  burdensome 
parts  of  his  performance.  He  seems,  indeed,  never  to 
think  either  of  himself  or  his  reader,  but  to  be  completely 
identified  and  lost  in  the  personages  with  whom  he  is 
occupied  ;  and  the  attention  of  the  reader  is  consequently 


THE  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE.  51 

either  transferred,  unbroken,  to  their  adventures,  or,  if  it 
glance  back  for  a  moment  to  the  author,  it  is  only  to 
think  how  much  more  might  be  done,  by  putting  forth 
that  strength  at  full,  which  has,  without  effort,  accom- 
plished so  many  wonders.  It  is  owing  partly  to  these  5 
qualities,  and  partly  to  the  great  variety  of  his  style,  that 
Mr.  Scott  is  much  less  frequently  tedious  than  any  other 
bulky  poet  with  whom  we  are  acquainted.  His  store  of 
images  is  so  copious,  that  he  never  dwells  upon  one  long 
enough  to  produce  weariness  in  the  reader  ;  and,  even  10 
where  he  deals  in  borrowed  or  in  tawdry  wares,  the 
rapidity  of  his  transitions,  and  the  transient  glance  with 
which  he  is  satisfied  as  to  each,  leave  the  critic  no  time 
to  be  offended,  and  hurry  him  forward,  along  with  the 
multitude,  enchanted  with  the  brilliancy  of  the  exhibition.  15 
Thus,  the  very  frequency  of  his  deviations  from  pure 
taste,  comes,  in  sonfe  sort,  to  constitute  their  apology  ; 
and  the  profusion  and  variety  of  his  faults  to  afford  a 
new  proof  of  his  genius. 

These,  we  think,  are  the  general  characteristics  of  Mr.  20 
Scott's  poetry.     Among  his  minor  peculiarities,  we  might 
notice  his  singular  talent  for  description^  and  especially 
for  the   description   of  scenes    abounding  in    motion    or 
action  of  any  kind.     In  this  department,  indeed,  we  con- 
ceive  him   to  be   almost  without  a  rival,  either  among  25 
modern  or  ancient  poets  ;  and  the  character  and  process 
of  his  descriptions  are  as  extraordinary  as  their  effect  is 
astonishing.     He  places  before  the  eyes  of  his  readers  a 
more  distinct  and  complete  picture,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  artist  ever  presented  by  mere  words  ;  and  yet  he  30 
does  not  (like  Crabbe)  enumerate  all  the  visible  parts  of 
the  subjects  with  any  degree  of  minuteness,  nor  confine 
^himself,  by  any  means,  to  what  is  visible.     The  singular 
merit  of  his  delineations,  on  the  contrary,  consists  in 


52  THE  LADY  OF   THE  LAKE. 

this,  that,  with  a  few  bold  and  abrupt  strokes,  he  finishes 
a  most  spirited  outline,  —  and  then  instantly  kindles  it 
by  the  sudden  light  and  colour  of  some  moral  affection. 
There  are  none  of  his  fine  descriptions,  accordingly, 
5  which  do  not  derive  a  great  part  of  their  clearness  and 
picturesque  effect,  as  well  as  their  interest,  from  the 
quantity  of  character  and  moral  expression  which  is  thus 
blended  with  their  details,  and  which,  so  far  from  inter- 
rupting the  conception  of  the  external  object,  very  power- 

10  fully  stimulate  the  fancy  of  the  reader  to  complete  it  ; 
and  give  a  grace  and  a  spirit  to  the  whole  representation, 
of  which  we  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  any  other 
example. 

Another  very  striking  peculiarity  in  Mr.  Scott's  poetry, 

15  is  the  air  of  freedom  and  nature  which  he  has  contrived 
to  impart  to  most  of  his  distinguished  characters  ;  and 
with  which  no  poet  more  modern  than  Shakespeare  has 
ventured  to  represent  personages  of  such  dignity.  We 
do  not  allude  here  merely  to  the  genuine  familiarity  and 

20  homeliness  of  many  of  his  scenes  and  dialogues,  but  to 
that  air  of  gaiety  and  playfulness  in  which  persons  of 
high  rank  seem,  from  time  immemorial,  to  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  array,  not  their  courtesy  only,  but  their 
generosity  and  their  hostility.  This  tone  of  good  society, 

25  Mr.  Scott  has  shed  over  his  higher  characters  with  great 
grace  and  effect ;  and  has,  in  this  way,  not  only  made  his 
representations  much  more  faithful  and  true  to  nature, 
but  has  very  agreeably  relieved  the  monotony  of  that 
tragic  solemnity  which  ordinary  writers  appear  to  think 

30  indispensable  to  the  dignity  of  poetical  heroes  and 
heroines.  We  are  not  sure,  however,  whether  he  has  not 
occasionally  exceeded  a  little  in  the  use  of  this  ornament ; 
and  given,  now  and  then,  too  coquettish  and  trifling  a 
tone  to  discussions  of  weight  and  moment. 


POEMS. 

By  the  Reverend  George  Crabbe.     8vo,  pp.  260.     London,  i8oy.1 


WE  receive  the  proofs  of  Mr.  Crabbe's  poetical  exist- 
ence, which  are  contained  in  this  volume,  with  the  same 
sort  of  feeling  that  would  be  excited  by  tidings  of  an 
ancient  friend,  whom  we  no  longer  expected  to  hear  of  in 
this  world.  We  rejoice  in  his  resurrection,  both  for  his 
sake  and  for  our  own:  But  we  feel  also  a  certain  move- 
ment of  self-condemnation,  for  having  been  remiss  in  our 
inquiries  after  him,  and  somewhat  too  negligent  of  the 
honours  which  ought,  at  any  rate,  to  have  been  paid  to 
his  memory. 

1  I  have  given  a  larger  space  to  Crabbe  in  this  republication  than 
to  any  of  his  contemporary  poets  ;  not  merely  because  I  think  more 
highly  of  him  than  of  most  of  them,  but  also  because  I  fancy  that 
he  has  had  less  justice  done  him.  The  nature  of  his  subjects  was 
not  such  as  to  attract  either  imitators  or  admirers,  from  among  the 
ambitious  or  fanciful  lovers  of  poetry ;  or,  consequently,  to  set  him 
at  the  head  of  a  School,  or  let  him  surround  himself  with  the 
zealots  of  a  Sect:  And  it  must  also  be  admitted,  that  his  claims  to 
distinction  depend  fully  as  much  on  his  great  powers  of  observation, 
his  skill  in  touching  the  deeper  sympathies  of  our  nature,  and  his 
power  of  inculcating,  by  their  means,  the  most  impressive  lessons  of 
humanity,  as  on  any  fine  play  of  fancy,  or  grace  and  beauty  in  his 
delineations.  I  have  great  faith,  however,  in  the  intrinsic  worth  and 
ultimate  success  of  those  more  substantial  attributes ;  and  have, 
accordingly,  the  strongest  impression  that  the  citations  I  have  here 
given  from  Crabbe  will  strike  more,  and  sink  deeper  into  the  minds 
of  readers  to  whom  they  are  new  (or  by  whom  they  may  have  been 
partially  forgotten),  than  any  I  have  been  able  to  present  from  other 


54  CR ABBE'S  POEMS. 

It  is  now,  we  are  afraid,  upwards  of  twenty  years  since 
we  were  first  struck  with  the  vigour,  originality,  and  truth 
of  description  of  "The  Village";  and  since,  we  regretted 
that  an  author,  who  could  write  so  well,  should  have 
5  written  so  little.  From  that  time  to  the  present,  we  have 
heard  little  of  Mr.  Crabbe  ;  and  fear  that  he  has  been  in 
a  great  measure  lost  sight  of  by  the  public,  as  well  as  by 
us.  With  a  singular,  and  scarcely  pardonable  indifference 
to  fame,  he  has  remained,  during  this  long  interval,  in 

10  patient  or  indolent  repose ;  and,  without  making  a  single 
movement  to  maintain  or  advance  the  reputation  he  had 
acquired,  has  permitted  others  to  usurp  the  attention 
which  he  was  sure  of  commanding,  and  allowed  himself 
to  be  nearly  forgotten  by  a  public,  which  reckons  upon 

15  being  reminded  of  all  the  claims  which  the  living  have 
on  its  favour.  His  former  publications,  though  of  dis- 
tinguished merit,  were  perhaps  too  small  in  volume  to 
remain  long  the  objects  of  general  attention,  and  seem, 
b.y  some  accident,  to  have  been  jostled  aside  in  the 

20  crowd  of  more  clamorous  competitors. 

Yet,  though  the  name  of  Crabbe  has  not  hitherto  been 
very  common  in  the  mouths  of  our  poetical  critics,  we 
believe  there  are  few  real  lovers  of  poetry  to  whom  some 
of  his  sentiments  and  descriptions  are  not  secretly 

writers.  It  probably  is  idle  enough  (as  well  as  a  little  presumptuous) 
to  suppose  that  a  publication  like  this  will  afford  many  opportunities 
of  testing  the  truth  of  this  prediction.  But,  as  the  experiment  is  to 
be  made,  there  can  be  no  harm  in  mentioning  this  as  one  of  its 
objects. 

It  is  but  candid,  however,  after  all,  to  add,  that  my  concern  for 
Mr.  Crabbe's  reputation  would  scarcely  have  led  me  to  devote  near 
one  hundred  pages  to  the  estimate  of  his  poetical  merits,  had  I  not 
set  some  value  on  the  speculations  as  to  the  elements  of  poetical 
excellence  in  general,  and  its  moral  bearings  and  affinities — for  the 
introduction  of  which  this  estimate  seemed  to  present  an  occasion, 
or  apology. 


CRAB  EPS  POEMS.  55 

familiar.  There  is  a  truth  and  force  in  many  of  his 
delineations  of  rustic  life,  which  is  calculated  to  sink 
deep  into  the  memory ;  and,  being  confirmed  by  daily 
observation,  they  are  recalled  upon  innumerable  occa- 
sions— when  the  ideal  pictures  of  more  fanciful  authors  5 
have  lost  all  their  interest.  For  ourselves  at  least,  we 
profess  to  be  indebted  to  Mr.  Crabbe  for  many  of  these 
strong  impressions  ;  and  have  known  more  than  one  of 
our  unpoetical  acquaintances,  who  declared  they  could 
never  pass  by  a  parish  workhouse  without  thinking  of  the  10 
description  of  it  they  had  read  at  school  in  the  Poetical 
Extracts.  The  volume  before  us  will  renew,  we  trust, 
and  extend  many  such  impressions.  It  contains  all  the 
former  productions  of  the  author,  with  about  double  their 
bulk  of  new  matter;  most  of  it  in  the  same  taste  and  15 
manner  of  composition  with  the  former ;  and  some  of  a 
kind,  of  which  we  have  had  no  previous  example  in  this 
author.  .The  whole,  however,  is  of  no  ordinary  merit, 
and  will  be  found,  we  have  little  doubt,  a  sufficient 
warrant  for  Mr.  Crabbe  to  take  his  place  as  one  of  the  20 
most  original,  nervous,  and  pathetic  poets  of  the  present 
century. 

His  characteristic,  certainly,  is  force,  and  truth  of 
description,  joined  for  the  most  part  to  great  selection 
and  condensation  of  expression  ;  —  that  kind  of  strength  25 
and  originality  which  we  meet  with  in  Cowper,  and  that 
sort  of  diction  and  versification  which  we  admire  in 
"The  Deserted  Village"  of  Goldsmith,  or  "The  Vanity 
of  Human  Wishes"  of  Johnson.  If  he  can  be  said  to 
have  imitated  the  manner  of  any  author,  it  is  Goldsmith,  30 
indeed,  who  has  been  the  object  of  his  imitation  ;  and 
yet  his  general  train  of  thinking,  and  his  views  of  society, 
are  so  extremely  opposite,  that,  when  "The  Village"  was 
first  published,  it  was  commonly  considered  as  an  anti- 


56  CR ABBE'S  POEMS. 

dote  or  an  answer  to  the  more  captivating  representations 
of  "The  Deserted  Village."  Compared  with  this  cele- 
brated author,  he  will  be  found,  we  think,  to  have  more 
vigour  and  less  delicacy ;  and  while  he  must  be  admitted 
5  to  be  inferior  in  the  fine  finish  and  uniform  beauty  of  his 
composition,  we  cannot  help  considering  him  superior, 
both  in  the  variety  and  the  truth  of  his  pictures.  Instead 
of  that  uniform  tint  of  pensive  tenderness  which  over- 
spreads the  whole  poetry  of  Goldsmith,  we  find  in  Mr. 

10  Crabbe  many  gleams  of  gaiety  and  humour.  Though 
his  habitual  views  of  life  are  more  gloomy  than  those  of 
his  rival,  his  poetical  temperament  seems  far  more  cheer- 
ful ;  and  when  the  occasions  of  sorrow  and  rebuke  are 
gone  by,  he  can  collect  himself  for  sarcastic  pleasantry, 

15  or  unbend  in  innocent  playfulness.  His  diction,  though 
generally  pure  and  powerful,  is  sometimes  harsh,  and 
sometimes  quaint ;  and  he  has  occasionally  admitted  a 
couplet  or  two  in  a  state  so  unfinished,  as  to  give  a  char- 
acter of  inelegance  to  the  passages  in  which  they  occur. 

20  With  a  taste  less  disciplined  and  less  fastidious  than  that 
of  Goldsmith,  he  has,  in  our  apprehension,  a  keener  eye 
for  observation,  and  a  readier  hand  for  the  delineation  of 
what  he  has  observed.  There  is  less  poetical  keeping  in 
his  whole  performance  ;  but  the  groups  of  which  it  con- 

25  sists  are  conceived,  we  think,  with  equal  genius,  and 
drawn  with  greater  spirit  as  well  as  far  greater  fidelity. 

It  is  not  quite  fair,  perhaps,  thus  to  draw  a  detailed 
parallel  between  a  living  poet,  and  one  whose  reputation 
has  been  sealed  by  death,  and  by  the  immutable  sentence 

30  of  a  surviving  generation.  Yet  there  are  so  few  of  his 
contemporaries  to  whom  Mr.  Crabbe  bears  any  resem- 
blance, that  we  can  scarcely  explain  our  opinion  of  his 
merit,  without  comparing  him  to  some  of  his  predecessors. 
There  is  one  set  of  writers,  indeed,  from  whose  works 


GRABBERS  POEMS.  57 

those  of  Mr.  Crabbe  might  receive  all  that  elucidation 
which  results  from  contrast,  and  from  an  entire  opposition 
in  all  points  of  taste  and  opinion.  We  allude  now  to  the 
Wordsworths,  and  the  Southeys,  and  Coleridges,  and  all 
that  ambitious  fraternity,  that,  with  good  intentions  and  5 
extraordinary  talents,  are  labouring  to  bring  back  our 
poetry  to  the  fantastical  oddity  and  puling  childishness  of 
Withers,  Quarles,  or  Marvel.  These  gentlemen  write  a 
great  deal  about  rustic  life,  as  well  as  Mr.  Crabbe  ;  and 
they  even  agree  with  him  in  dwelling  much  on  its  dis-  10 
comforts  ;  but  nothing  can  be  more  opposite  than  the 
views  they  take  of  the  subject,  or  the  manner  in  which 
they  execute  their  representations  of  them. 

Mr.  Crabbe  exhibits  the  common  people  of  England 
pretty  much  as  they  are,  and  as  they  must  appear  to  15 
every  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  of  examining  into 
their  condition  ;  at  the  same  time  that  he  renders  his 
sketches  in  a  very  high  degree  interesting  and  beautiful 
—  by  selecting  what  is  most  fit  for  description  —  by 
grouping  them  into  such  forms  as  must  catch  the  attention  20 
or  awake  the  memory  —  and  by  scattering  over  the  whole 
such  traits  of  moral  sensibility,  of  sarcasm,  and  of  deep 
reflection,  as  every  one  must  feel  to  be  natural,  and  own 
to  be  powerful.  The  gentlemen  of  the  new  school,  on 
the  other  hand,  scarcely  ever  condescend  to  take  their  25 
subjects  from  any  description  of  persons  at  all  known  to 
the  common  inhabitants  of  the  world  ;  but  invent  for 
themselves  certain  whimsical  and  unheard-of  beings,  to 
whom  they  impute  some  fantastical  combination  of  feel- 
ings, and  then  labour  to  excite  our  sympathy  for  them,  30 
either  by  placing  them  in  incredible  situations,  or  by 
some  strained  and  exaggerated  moralisation  of  a  vague 
and  tragical  description.  Mr.  Crabbe,  in  short,  shows  us 
something  which  we  have  all  seen,  or  may  see,  in  real  life; 


58  CK ABBE'S  POEMS. 

and  draws  from  it  such  feelings  and  such  reflections  as 
every  human  being  must  acknowledge  that  it  is  calculated 
to  excite.  He  delights  us  by  the  truth,  and  vivid  and 
picturesque  beauty  of  his  representations,  and  by  the 
5  force  and  pathos  of  the  sensations  with  which  we  feel  that 
they  are  connected.  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  his  associates, 
on  the  other  hand,  introduce  us  to  beings  whose  existence 
was  not  previously  suspected  by  the  acutest  observers  of 
nature  ;  and  excite  an  interest  for  them  —  where  they  do 

10  excite  any  interest — more  by  an  eloquent  and  refined 
analysis  of  their  own  capricious  feelings,  than  by  any  ob- 
vious or  intelligible  ground  of  sympathy  in  their  situation. 
Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  or 
the  more  recent  publications  of  Mr.  Wordsworth,  will 

15  scarcely  deny  the  justice  of  this  representation  ;  but  in 
order  to  vindicate  it  to  such  as  do  not  enjoy  that  advan- 
tage, we  must  beg  leave  to  make  a  few  hasty  references 
to  the  former,  and  by  far  the  least  exceptionable  of  those 
productions. 

20  A  village  schoolmaster,  for  instance,  is  a  pretty  common 
poetical  character.  Goldsmith  has  drawn  him  inimitably; 
so  has  Shenstone,  with  the  slight  change  of  sex;  and  Mr. 
Crabbe,  in  two  passages,  has  followed  their  footsteps. 
Now,  Mr.  Wordsworth  has  a  village  schoolmaster  also  — 

25  a  personage  who  makes  no  small  figure  in  three  or  four  of 
his  poems.  But  by  what  traits  is  this  worthy  old  gentle- 
man delineated  by  the  new  poet?  No  pedantry  —  no 
innocent  vanity  of  learning  —  no  mixture  of  indulgence 
with  the  pride  of  power,  and  of  poverty  with  the  conscious- 

30  ness  of  rare  acquirements.  Every  feature  which  belongs 
to  the  situation,  or  marks  the  character  in  common  appre- 
hension, is  scornfully  discarded  by  Mr.  Wordsworth;  who 
represents  his  grey-haired  rustic  pedagogue  as  a  sort  of 
half  crazy,  sentimental  person,  overrun  with  fine  feelings, 


CR  ABBE'S  POEMS.  59 

constitutional  merriment,  and  a  most  humorous  melan- 
choly. Here  are  the  two  stanzas  in  which  this  consistent 
and  intelligible  character  is  pourtrayed.  The  diction  is 
at  least  as  new  as  the  conception. 

"The  sighs  which  Matthew  heav'd  were  sighs  5 

Of  one  tir'd  out  whh/uti  and  madness  ; 
The  tears  which  came  to  Matthew's  eyes 
Were  tears  of  light  —  the  oil  of  gladness. 

"  Yet  sometimes,  when  the  secret  cup 

Of  still  and  serious  thought  went  round  10 

He  seem'd  as  if  he  drank  it  up, 

He  felt  with  spirit  so  profound. 
Thou  soul  of  God's  best  earthly  mould,"  &c. 

A  frail  damsel  again  is  a  character  common  enough  in 
all  poems  ;  and  one  upon  which  many  fine  and  pathetic  15 
lines  have  been  expended.  Mr.  Wordsworth  has  written 
more  than  three  hundred  on  the  subject  ;  but,  instead  of 
new  images  of  tenderness,  or  delicate  representation  of 
intelligible  feelings,  he  has  contrived  to  tell  us  nothing 
whatever  of  the  unfortunate  fair  one,  but  that  her  name  20 
is  Martha  Ray;  and  that  she  goes  up  to  the  top  of  a  hill, 
in  a  red  cloak,  and  cries  "  O  misery!  "  All  the  rest  of 
the  poem  is  filled  with  a  description  of  an  old  thorn  and 
a  pond,  and  of  the  silly  stories  which  the  neighbouring 
old  women  told  about  them.  25 

The  sports  of  childhood,  and  the  untimely  death  of 
promising  youth,  is  also  a  common  topic  of  poetry.  Mr. 
Wordsworth  has  made  some  blank  verse  about  it ;  but, 
instead  of  the  delightful  and  picturesque  sketches  with 
which  so  many  authors  of  modern  talents  have  presented  3° 
us  on  this  inviting  subject,  all  that  he  is  pleased  to  com- 
municate of  his  rustic  child,  is,  that  he  used  to  amuse 
himself  with  shouting  to  the  owls,  and  hearing  them 
answer.  To  make  amends  for  this  brevity,  the  process 
of  his  mimicry  is  most  accurately  described.  35 


60  CRABBERS  POEMS. 

"  With  fingers  interwoven,  both  hands 

Press'd  closely  palm  to  palm,  and  to  his  mouth 
Uplifted,  he,  as  through  an  instrument, 
Blew  mimic  hootings  to  the  silent  owls, 
5  That  they  might  answer  him." — 

This  is  all  we  hear  of  him  ;  and  for  the  sake  of  this 
one  accomplishment,  we  are  told,  that  the  author  has 
frequently  stood  mute,  and  gazed  on  his  grave  for  half  an 
hour  together! 

10  Love,  and  the  fantasies  of  lovers,  have  afforded  an 
ample  theme  to  poets  of  all  ages.  Mr.  Wordsworth,  how- 
ever, has  thought  fit  to  compose  a  piece,  illustrating  this 
copious  subject  by  one  single  thought.  A  lover  trots 
away  to  see  his  mistress  one  fine  evening,  gazing  all  the 

15  way  on  the  moon  ;  when  he  comes  to  her  door, 

"  O  mercy!   to  myself  I  cried, 
If  Lucy  should  be  dead!  " 

And  there  the  poem  ends! 

Now,  we  leave  it  to   any  reader  of  common   candour 

20  and  discernment  to  say,  whether  these  representations  of 
character  and  sentiment  are  drawn  from  that  eternal  and 
universal  standard  of  truth  and  nature,  which  every  one 
is  knowing  enough  to  recognise,  and  no  one  great  enough 
to  depart  from  with  impunity;  or  whether  they  are  not 

25  formed,  as  we  have  ventured  to  allege,  upon  certain  fan- 
tastic and  affected  peculiarities  in  the  mind  or  fancy  of 
the  author,  into  which  it  is  most  improbable  that  many  of 
his  readers  will  enter,  and  which  cannot,  in  some  cases, 
be  comprehended  without  much  effort  and  explanation. 

3°  Instead  of  multiplying  instances  of  these  wide  and  wilful 
aberrations  from  ordinary  nature,  it  may  be  more  satis- 
factory to  produce  the  author's  own  admission  of  the 
narrowness  of  the  plan  upon  which  he  writes,  and  of  the 
very  extraordinary  circumstances  which  he  himself  some- 

35  times  thinks  it  necessary  for  his  readers  to  keep  in  view, 


CRAB  HE'S  POEMS.  61 

if  they  would  wish  to  understand  the  beauty  or  propriety 
of  his  delineations. 

A  pathetic  tale  of  guilt  or  superstition  may  be  told,  we 
are  apt  to  fancy,  by  the  poet  himself,  in  his  general 
character  of  poet,  with  full  as  much  effect  as  by  any  other  5 
person.  An  old  nurse,  at  any  rate,  or  a  monk  or  parish 
clerk,  is  always  at  hand  to  give  grace  to  such  a  narration. 
None  of  these,  however,  would  satisfy  Mr.  Wordsworth. 
He  has  written  a  long  poem  of  this  sort,  in  which  he 
thinks  it  indispensably  necessary  to  apprise  the  reader,  10 
that  he  has  endeavoured  to  represent  the  language  and 
sentiments  of  a  particular  character  —  of  which  character, 
he  adds,  "  the  reader  will  have  a  general  notion,  if  he  has 
ever  known  a  man,  a  captain  of  a  small  trading  vessel,  for 
example,  who  being  past  the  middle  age  of  life,  has  retired  15 
upon  an  annuity,  or  small  independent  income,  to  some 
village  or  country,  of  which  he  was  not  a  native,  or  in 
which  he  had  not  been  accustomed  to  live!  " 

Now,  we  must  be  permitted  to  doubt,  whether,  among 
all   the  readers  of  Mr.  Wordsworth  (few  or  many),  there  20 
is  a  single  individual  who  has  had  the  happiness  of  know- 
ing a  person  of  this  very  peculiar  description  ;  or  who  is 
capable  of  forming  any  sort  of  conjecture  of  the  particular 
disposition  and  turn  of  thinking  which  such  a  combination 
of  attributes  would  be  apt  to  produce.     To  us,  we  will  25 
confess,  the  annonce  appears  as  ludicrous  and  absurd  as 
it  would  be  in  the  author  of  an  ode  or  an  epic  to  say, 
"  Of  this   piece  the  reader  will  necessarily  form  a  very 
erroneous  judgment,  unless   he   is   apprised,  that   it  was 
written  by  a  pale  man   in   a  green   coat  —  sitting  cross-  3° 
legged  on  an  oaken  stool  —  with  a  scratch   on   his  nose, 
and  a  spelling  dictionary  on  the  table."  1 

1  Some   of  our   readers    may  have  a   curiosity  to   know   in  what 
manner  this  old  annuitant  captain  does  actually  express  himself  in 


62  CRABBERS  POEMS. 

From  these  childish  and  absurd  affectations,  we  turn 
with  pleasure  to  the  manly  sense  and  correct  picturing  of 
Mr.  Crabbe  ;  and,  after  being  dazzled  and  made  giddy 
with  the  elaborate  raptures  and  obscure  originalities  of 
5  these  new  artists,  it  is  refreshing  to  meet  again  with  the 
spirit  and  nature  of  our  old  masters,  in  the  nervous  pages 
of  the  author  now  before  us. 

the  village  of  his  adoption.  For  their  gratification,  we  annex  the 
two  first  stanzas  of  his  story ;  in  which,  with  all  the  attention  we 
have  been  able  to  bestow,  we  have  been  utterly  unable  to  detect 
any  traits  that  can  be  supposed  to  characterise  either  a  seaman,  an 
annuitant,  or  a  stranger  in  a  country  town.  It  is  a  style,  on  the 
contrary,  which  we  should  ascribe,  without  hesitation,  to  a  certain 
poetical  fraternity  in  the  West  of  England  ;  and  which,  we  verily 
believe,  never  was,  and  never  will  be,  used  by  any  one  out  of  that 
fraternity. 

"  There  is  a  thorn  —  it  looks  so  old, 

In  truth  you  'd  find  it  hard  to  say, 
How  it  could  ever  have  been  young ! 

It  looks  so  old  and  gray. 
Not  higher  than  a  two-years'  child 

It  stands  erect ;  this  aged  thorn  ! 
No  leaves  it  has,  no  thorny  points ; 
It  is  a  mass  of  knotted  joints : 

A  wretched  thing  forlorn, 
//  stands  erect ;  and  like  a  stone, 
With  lichens  it  is  overgrown. 

"  Like  rock  or  stone,  it  is  o'er  grown 

With  lichens  ;  —  to  the  very  top  ; 
And  hung  with  heavy  tufts  of  moss 

A  melancholy  crop. 
Up  from  the  earth  these  mosses  creep. 

And  this  poor  thorn,  they  clasp  it  round 
So  close,  you'd  say  that  they  were  bent, 
With  plain  and  manifest  intent ! 

To  drag  it  to  the  ground  ; 
And  all  had  join'd  in  one  endeavour, 
To  bury  this  poor  thorn  for  ever." 

And  this  it  seems,  is  Nature,  and  Pathos,  and  Poetry  ! 


THE  BOROUGH. 


A  Poem,  in  Twenty-four  Letters.    By  the  Rev.  George  Crabbe,  LL.B. 
8vo,  pp.  344.     London,  1810. 


WE  are  very  glad  to  meet  with  Mr.  Crabbe  so  soon 
again  ;  and  particularly  glad  to  find,  that  his  early  return 
has  been  occasioned,  in  part,  by  the  encouragement  he 
received  on  his  last  appearance.  This  late  spring  of 
public  favour,  we  hope,  he  will  live  to  see  ripen  into  5 
mature  fame.  We  scarcely  know  any  poet  who  deserves 
it  better  ;  and  are  quite  certain  there  is  none  who  is  more 
secure  of  keeping  with  posterity  whatever  he  may  win 
from  his  contemporaries. 

The  present  poem  is  precisely  of  the  character  of  The  10 
Village    and    The    Parish    Register.      It   has    the    same 
peculiarities,  and  the  same  faults  and  beauties  ;  though  a 
severe  critic  might  perhaps  add,  that  its  peculiarities  are 
more  obtrusive,  its  faults  greater,  and  its  beauties  less. 
However  that  be,  both  faults  and  beauties  are  so  plainly  15 
produced  by  the  peculiarity,  that  it  may  be  worth  while, 
before  giving  any  more  particular  account  of  it,  to  try  if 
we  can  ascertain  in  what  that  consists. 

And  here  we  shall  very  speedily  discover,  that  Mr. 
Crabbe  is  distinguished  from  all  other  poets,  both  by  the  20 
choice  of  his  subjects,  and  by  his  manner  of  treating 
them.  All  his  persons  are  taken  from  the  lower  ranks  of 
life  ;  and  all  his  scenery  from  the  most  ordinary  and 
familiar  objects  of  nature  or  art.  His  characters  and 
incidents,  too,  are  as  common  as  the  elements  out  of  25 


64  THE  BOROUGH. 

which  they  are  compounded  are  humble  ;  and  not  only 
has  he  nothing  prodigious  or  astonishing  in  any  of  his 
representations,  but  he  has  not  even  attempted  to  impart 
any  of  the  ordinary  colours  of  poetry  to  those  vulgar 
5  materials.  He  has  no  moralising  swains  or  sentimental 
tradesmen  ;  and  scarcely  ever  seeks  to  charm  us  by  the 
artless  graces  or  lowly  virtues  of  his  personages.  On  the 
contrary,  he  has  represented  his  villagers  and  humble 
burghers  as  altogether  as  dissipated,  and  more  dishonest 

10  and  discontented,  than  the  profligates  of  higher  life  ;  and, 
instead  of  conducting  us  through  blooming  groves  and 
pastoral  meadows,  has  led  us  along  filthy  lanes  and 
crowded  wharves,  to  hospitals,  alms  houses,  and  gin- 
shops.  In  some  of  these  delineations,  he  may  be  con- 

15  sidered  the  Satirist  of  low  life  —  an  occupation  sufficiently 
arduous,  and,  in  a  great  degree,  new  and  original  in  our 
language.  But  by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  poetry  is  of 
a  different  and  a  higher  character ;  and  aims  at  moving 
or  delighting  us  by  lively,  touching,  and  finely  contrasted 

20  representations  of  the  dispositions,  sufferings,  and  occu- 
pations of  those  ordinary  persons  who  form  the  far 
greater  part  of  our  fellow-creatures.  This,  too,  he  has 
sought  to  effect,  merely  by  placing  before  us  the  clearest, 
most  brief,  and  most  striking  sketches  of  their  external 

25  condition  —  the  most  sagacious  and  unexpected  strokes 
of  character  —  and  the  truest  and  most  pathetic  pictures 
of  natural  feeling  and  common  suffering.  By  the  mere 
force  of  his  art,  and  the  novelty  of  his  style,  he  forces  us 

.     to  attend  to  objects  that  are  usually  neglected,  and  to 

3°  enter  into  feelings  from  which  we  are  in  general  but  too 
eager  to  escape ;  —  and  then  trusts  to  nature  for  the 
effect  of  the  representation. 

It  is  obvious,  at  first  sight,  that  this  is  not  a  task  for 
an  ordinary  hand  ;  and  that  many  ingenious  writers,  who 


THE   BOROUGH.  65 

make  a  very  good  figure  with  battles,  nymphs,  and  moon- 
light landscapes,  would  find  themselves  quite  helpless,  if 
set  down  among  streets,  harbours,  and  taverns.  The 
difficulty  of  such  subjects,  in  short,  is  sufficiently  visible 
—  and  some  of  the  causes  of  that  difficulty  :  But  they  5 
have  their  advantages  also ;  —  and  of  these,  and  their 
hazards,  it  seems  natural  to  say  a  few  words,  before 
entering  more  minutely  into  the  merits  of  the  work 
before  us. 

The  first  great  advantage  of  such  familiar  subjects  is,  10 
that  every  one  is  necessarily  well  acquainted  with  the 
originals  ;  and  is  therefore  sure  to  feel  all  that  pleasure, 
from  a  faithful  representation  of  them,  which  results  from 
the  perception  of  a  perfect  and  successful  imitation.     In 
the  kindred  art  of  painting,  we  find  that  this  single  con-  15 
sideration  has  been  sufficient  to  stamp  a  very  high  value 
upon  accurate  and  lively  delineations  of  objects,  in  them- 
selves uninteresting,  and  even  disagreeable  ;  and  no  very 
inconsiderable  part  of  the  pleasure  which  may  be  derived 
from  Mr.  Crabbe's  poetry  may  probably  be  referred  to  20 
its  mere  truth  and  fidelity ;  and  to  the  brevity  and  clear- 
ness with  which  he  sets  before  his  readers,  objects  and 
characters  with   which   they  have    been    all    their   days 
familiar. 

In   his   happier   passages,   however,   he   has   a   higher  25 
merit,  and  imparts  a  far  higher  gratification.     The  chief 
delight  of  poetry  consists,  not  so  much  in  what  it  directly 
supplies  to  the  imagination,  as  in  what  it  enables  it  to 
supply  to  itself  ;  —  not  in  warming  the  heart  by  its  pass- 
ing brightness,  but  in  kindling  its  own  latent  stores  of  30 
light  and  heat ;  —  not  in  hurrying  the  fancy  along  by  a 
foreign  and  accidental  impulse,  but  in  setting  it  agoing, 
by  touching  its  internal  springs  and  principles  of  activity. 
Now,  this  highest  and  most  delightful  effect  can  only  be 


66  THE   BOROUGH. 

produced  by  the  poet's  striking  a  note  to  which  the  heart 
and  the  affections  naturally  vibrate  in  unison  ;  —  by  rous- 
ing one  of  a  large  family  of  kindred  impressions  ;  —  by 
dropping  the  rich  seed  of  his  fancy  upon  the  fertile  and 

5  sheltered  places  of  the  imagination.  But  it  is  evident, 
that  the  emotions  connected  with  common  and  familiar 
objects  —  with  objects  which  fill  every  man's  memory, 
and  are  necessarily  associated  with  all  that  he  has  ever 
really  felt  or  fancied,  are  of  all  others  the  most  likely  to 

10  answer  this  description,  and  to  produce,  where  they  can 
be  raised  to  a  sufficient  height,  this  great  effect  in  its 
utmost  perfection.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  images 
and  affections  that  belong  to  our  universal  nature,  are 
always,  if  tolerably  represented,  infinitely  more  captivat- 

15  ing,  in  spite  of  their  apparent  commonness  and  simplicity, 
than  those  that  are  peculiar  to  certain  situations,  however 
they  may  come  recommended  by  novelty  or  grandeur. 
The  familiar  feeling  of  maternal  tenderness  and  anxiety, 
which  is  every  day  before  our  eyes,  even  in  the  brute 

20  creation  —  and  the  enchantment  of  youthful  love,  which 
is  nearly  the  same  in  all  characters,  ranks,  and  situations 
—  still  contribute  far  more  to  the  beauty  and  interest  of 
poetry  than  all  the  misfortunes  of  princes,  the  jealousies 
of  heroes,  and  the  feats  of  giants,  magicians,  or  ladies 

25  in  armour.  Every  one  can  enter  into  the  former  set  of 
feelings  ;  and  but  a  few  into  the  latter.  The  one  calls 
up  a  thousand  familiar  and  long-remembered  emotions  — 
which  are  answered  and  reflected  on  every  side  by  the 
kindred  impressions  which  experience  or  observation 

30  have  traced  upon  every  memory:  while  the  other  lights  up 
but  a  transient  and  unfruitful  blaze,  and  passes  away  with- 
out perpetuating  itself  in  any  kindred  and  native  sensation. 
Now,  the  delineation   of  all  that  concerns  the  lower 
and  most  numerous  classes  of  society,  is,  in  this  respect, 


THE  BOROUGH.  67 

on  a  footing  with  the  pictures  of  our  primary  affections 
—  that  their  originals  are  necessarily  familiar  to  all  men, 
and  are  inseparably  associated  with  their  own  most  inter- 
esting impressions.    Whatever  may  be  our  own  condition,' 
we  all  live  surrounded  with  the  poor,  from  infancy  to    5 
age  ;  —  we  hear  daily  of  their  sufferings  and  misfortunes  ; 
—  and  their  toils,  their  crimes,  or  their  pastimes,  are  our 
hourly  spectacle.     Many  diligent  readers  of  poetry  know 
little,   by  their  own   experience,   of  palaces,   castles,  or 
camps  ;  and  still  less  of  tyrants,  warriors  and  banditti ;  10 
but  every  one  understands  about  cottages,  streets,  and 
villages  ;    and  conceives,  pretty  correctly,  the  character 
and  condition  of  sailors,  ploughmen,  and  artificers.     If 
the  poet  can  contrive,   therefore,  to  create   a   sufficient 
interest  in  subjects  like  these,  they  will  infallibly  sink  15 
deeper  into  the  mind,  and  be  more  prolific  of  kindred 
trains  of  emotion,  than  subjects  of  greater  dignity.     Nor 
is  the  difficulty  of  exciting  such  an  interest  by  any  means 
so  great   as   is  generally  imagined.     For  it  is  common 
human   nature,   and  common   human   feelings,   after  all,  20 
that  form  the  true  source  of  interest  in  poetry  of  every 
description;  —  and   the  splendour   and   the  marvels  by 
which  it  is  sometimes  surrounded,  serve  no  other  purpose 
than  to  fix  our  attention  on  those  workings  of  the  heart, 
and  those  energies  of  the   understanding,   which  alone  25 
command  all  the  genuine  sympathies  of  human  beings  — 
and  which  may  be  found  as  abundantly  in  the  breasts  of 
cottagers  as  of  kings.    Wherever  there  are  human  beings, 
therefore,  with  feelings  and  characters  to  be  represented, 
our  attention  may  be  fixed  by  the  art  of  the  poet  —  by  3° 
his  judicious  selection  of  circumstances  —  by  the  force 
and  vivacity  of  his  style,  and  the  clearness  and  brevity  of 
his  representations. 

In  point  of  fact,  we  are  all  touched  more  deeply,  as 


68  THE  BOROUGH. 

well  as  more  frequently,  in  real  life,  with  the  sufferings  of 
peasants  than  of  princes  ;  and  sympathise  much  oftener, 
and  more  heartily,  with  the  successes  of  the  poor,  than  of 
the  rich  and  distinguished.  The  occasions  of  such  feel- 
5  ings  are  indeed  so  many,  and  so  common,  that  they  do 
not  often  leave  any  very  permanent  traces  behind  them, 
but  pass  away,  and  are  effaced  by  the  very  rapidity  of 
their  succession.  The  business  and  the  cares,  and  the 
pride  of  the  world,  obstruct  the  development  of  the 

10  emotions  to  which  they  would  naturally  give  rise  ;  and 
press  so  close  and  thick  upon  the  mind,  as  to  shut  it,  at 
most  seasons,  against  the  reflections  that  are  perpetually 
seeking  for  admission.  When  we  have  leisure,  however, 
to  look  quietly  into  our  hearts,  we  shall  find  in  them  an 

15  infinite  multitude  of  little  fragments  of  sympathy  with  our 
brethren  in  humble  life  —  abortive  movements  of  com- 
passion, and  embryos  of  kindness  and  concern,  which 
had  once  fairly  begun  to  live  and  germinate  within  them, 
though  withered  and  broken  off  by  the  selfish  bustle  and 

20  fever  of  our  daily  occupations.     Now,  all  these  may  be 

revived  and  carried  on  to  maturity  by  the  art  of  the  poet ; 

—  and,  therefore,  a  powerful  effort  to  interest  us  in  the 

feelings  of  the  humble  and  obscure,  will  usually  call  forth 

more  deep,  more  numerous,  and  more  permanent  emo- 

25  tions,  than  can  ever  be  excited  by  the  fate  of  princesses 
and  heroes.  Independent  of  the  circumstances  to  which 
we  have  already  alluded,  there  are  causes  which  make  us 
at  all  times  more  ready  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the 
humble,  than  of  the  exalted  part  of  our  species.  Our 

30  sympathy  with  their  enjoyments  is  enhanced  by  a  certain 
mixture  of  pity  for  their  general  condition,  which,  by 
purifying  it  from  that  taint  of  envy  which  almost  always 
adheres  to  our  admiration  of  the  great,  renders  it  more 
welcome  and  satisfactory  to  our  bosoms  ;  while  our  con- 


THE  BOROUGH.  69 

cern  for  their  sufferings  is  at  once  softened  and  endeared 
to  us,  by  the  recollection  of  our  own  exemption  from 
them,  and  by  the  feeling,  that  we  frequently  have  it  in 
our  power  to  relieve  them. 

From  these,  and  from  other  causes,  it  appears  to  us  to  5 
be  certain,  that  where  subjects,  taken  from  humble  life, 
can  be  made  sufficiently  interesting  to  overcome  the 
distaste  and  the  prejudices  with  which  the  usages  of 
polished  society  too  generally  lead  us  to  regard  them, 
the  interest  which  they  excite  will  commonly  be  more  10 
profound  and  more  lasting  than  any  that  can  be  raised 
upon  loftier  themes  ;  and  the  poet  of  the  Village  and  the 
Borough  be  oftener,  and  longer  read,  than  the  poet  of 
the  Court  or  the  Camp.  The  most  popular  passages  of 
Shakespeare  and  Cowper,  we  think,  are  of  this  description:  15 
and  there  is  much,  both  in  the  volume  before  us,  and  in 
Mr.  Crabbe's  former  publications,  to  which  we  might 
now  venture  to  refer,  as  proofs  of  the  same  doctrine. 
When  such  representations  have  once  made  an  impres- 
sion on  the  imagination,  they  are  remembered  daily,  and  20 
for  ever.  We  can  neither  look  around,  nor  within  us, 
without  being  reminded  of  their  truth  and  their  import- 
ance ;  and,  while  the  more  brilliant  effusions  of  romantic 
fancy  are  recalled  only  at  long  intervals,  and  in  rare 
situations,  we  feel  that  we  cannot  walk  a  step  from  our  25 
own  doors,  nor  cast  a  glance  back  on  our  departed  years, 
without  being  indebted  to  the  poet  of  vulgar  life  for  some 
striking  image  or  touching  reflection,  of  which  the  occa- 
sions were  always  before  us,  but  —  till  he  taught  us  how 
to  improve  them  —  were  almost  always  allowed  to  escape.  30 

Such,  we  conceive,  are  some  of  the  advantages  of  the 
subjects  which  Mr.  Crabbe  has  in  a  great  measure  intro- 
duced into  modern  poetry; — and  such  the  grounds  upon 
which  we  venture  to  perdict  the  durability  of  the  reputa- 


70  THE  BOROUGH. 

tion  which  he  is  in  the  course  of  acquiring.  That  they 
have  their  disadvantages  also,  is  obvious  ;  and  it  is  no 
less  obvious,  that  it  is  to  these  we  must  ascribe  the 
greater  part  of  the  faults  and  deformities  with  which  this 
5  author  is  fairly  chargeable.  The  two  great  errors  into 
which  he  has  fallen,  are  —  that  he  has  described  many 
things  not  worth  describing  ;  — and  that  he  has  frequently 
excited  disgust,  instead  of  pity  or  indignation,  in  the 
breasts  of  his  readers.  These  faults  are  obvious  —  and, 

10  we  believe,  are  popularly  laid  to  his  charge  :  Yet  there  is, 
in  so  far  as  we  have  observed,  a  degree  of  misconception 
as  to  the  true  grounds  and  limits  of  the  charge,  which 
we  think  it  worth  while  to  take  this  opportunity  of  cor- 
recting. 

15  The  poet  of  humble  life  must  describe  a  great  deal  — 
and  must  even  describe,  minutely,  many  things  which 
possess  in  themselves  no  beauty  or  grandeur.  The 
reader's  fancy  must  be  awaked —  and  the  power  of  his 
own  pencil  displayed  ;  —  a  distinct  locality  and  imaginary 

20  reality  must  be  given  to  his  characters  and  agents  :  and 
the  ground  colour  of  their  common  condition  must  be 
laid  in,  before  his  peculiar  and  selected  groups  can  be 
presented  with  any  effect  or  advantage.  In  the  same 
way,  he  must  study  characters  with  a  minute  and  ana- 

25  tomical  precision  ;  and  must  make  both  himself  and  his 
readers  familiar  with  the  ordinary  traits  and  general 
family  features  of  the  beings  among  whom  they  are  to 
move,  before  they  can  either  understand,  or  take  much 
interest  in  the  individuals  who  are  to  engross  their  atten- 

30  tion.  Thus  far,  there  is  no  excess  or  unnecessary  minute- 
ness. But  this  faculty  of  observation,  and  this  power  of 
description,  hold  out  great  temptations  to  go  further. 
There  is  a  pride  and  a  delight  in  the  exercise  of  all 
peculiar  power  ;  and  the  poet,  who  has  learned  to  de- 


THE   BOROUGH.  Ji 

scribe  external  objects  exquisitely,  with  a  view  to  heighten 
the  effect  of  his  moral  designs,  and  to  draw  characters 
with  accuracy,  to  help  forward  the  interest  or  the  pathos 
of  the  picture,  will  be  in  great  danger  of  describing 
scenes,  and  drawing  characters,  for  no  other  purpose,  but  5 
to  indulge  his  taste,  and  to  display  his  talents.  It  cannot 
be  denied,  we  think,  that  Mr.  Crabbe  has,  on  many 
occasions,  yielded  to  this  temptation.  He  is  led  away, 
every  now  and  then,  by  his  lively  conception  of  external 
objects,  and  by  his  nice  and  sagacious  observation  of  10 
human  character ;  and  wantons  and  luxuriates  in  descrip- 
tions and  moral  portrait  painting,  while  his  readers  are 
left  to  wonder  to  what  end  so  much  industry  has  been 
exerted. 

His  chief  fault,   however,   is    his   frequent  lapse    into  15 
disgusting  representations  ;  and  this,  we  will  confess,  is 
an  error  for  which  we  find  it  far  more  difficult  either  to 
account   or  to   apologise.     We  are  not,  however,  of  the 
opinion  which  we  have  often  heard  stated,  that  he  has 
represented   human    nature  under  too   unfavourable    an  20 
aspect  ;  or  that  the  distaste  which  his  poetry  sometimes 
produces,  is   owing  merely  to   the  painful   nature  of  the 
scenes   and   subjects   with   which    it    abounds.     On    the 
contrary,  we   think  he  has  given   a  juster,  as  well  as  a 
more  striking  picture,  of  the  true  character  and  situation  25 
of  the  lower  orders  of  this  country,  than  any  other  writer, 
whether  in  verse  or  in  prose  ;  and  that  he  has  made  no 
more  use  of  painful  emotions  than  was  necessary  to  the 
production  of  a  pathetic  effect. 

All  powerful  and  pathetic  poetry,  it  is  obvious,  abounds  3° 
in   images    of  distress.     The    delight    which   it  bestows 
partakes  strongly  of  pain  ;  and,  by  a  sort  of  contradic- 
tion, which  has  long  engaged  the  attention  of  the  reflect- 
ing,  the   compositions  that  attract   us   most  powerfully, 


72  THE   BOROUGH. 

and  detain  us  the  longest,  are  those  that  produce  in  us 
most  of  the  effects  of  actual  suffering  and  wretchedness. 
The  solution  of  this  paradox  is  to  be  found,  we  think,  in 
the  simple  fact,  that  pain  is  a  far  stronger  sensation  than 
5  pleasure,  in  human  existence  ;  and  that  the  cardinal 
virtue  of  all  things  that  are  intended  to  delight  the  mind, 
is  to  produce  a  strong  sensation.  Life  itself  appears  to 
consist  in  sensation  ;  and  the  universal  passion  of  all 
beings  that  have  life,  seems  to  be,  that  they  should  be 

10  made  intensely  conscious  of  it,  by  a  succession  of  power- 
ful and  engrossing  emotions.  All  the  mere  gratifications 
or  natural  pleasures  that  are  in  the  power  even  of  the 
most  fortunate,  are  quite  insufficient  to  fill  this  vast 
craving  for  sensation  :  And  accordingly,  we  see  every 

15  day,  that  a  more  violent  stimulus  is  sought  for  by  those 
who  have  attained  the  vulgar  heights  of  life,  in  the 
pains  and  dangers  of  war  —  the  agonies  of  gaming  —  or 
the  feverish  toils  of  ambition.  To  those  who  have  tasted 
of  those  potent  cups,  where  the  bitter,  however,  so 

20  obviously  predominates,  the  security,  the  comforts,  and 
what  are  called  the  enjoyments  of  common  life,  are 
intolerably  insipid  and  disgusting.  Nay,  we  think  we 
have  observed,  that  even  those  who,  without  any  effort  or 
exertion,  have  experienced  unusual  misery,  frequently 

25  appear,  in  like  manner,  to  acquire  a  sort  of  taste  or 
craving  for  it  ;  and  come  to  look  on  the  tranquillity  of 
ordinary  life  with  a  kind  of  indifference  not  unmingled 
with  contempt.  It  is  certain,  at  least,  that  they  dwell 
with  most  apparent  satisfaction  on  the  memory  of  those 

30  days,  which  have  been  marked  by  the  deepest  and  most 
agonising  sorrows  ;  and  derive  a  certain  delight  from  the 
recollections  of  those  overwhelming  sensations  which 
once  occasioned  so  fierce  a  throb  in  the  languishing  pulse 
of  their  existence. 


THE  BOROUGH.  73 

If  any  thing  of  this  kind,  however,  can  be  traced  in 
real  life  —  if  the  passion  for  emotion  be  so  strong  as  to 
carry  us,  not  in  imagination,  but  in  reality,  over  the  rough 
edge  of  present  pain  —  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  explain, 
why  it  should  be  so  attractive  in  the  copies  and  fictions  5 
of  poetry.  There,  as  in  real  life,  the  great  demand  is  for 
emotion  ;  while  the  pain  with  which  it  may  be  attended, 
can  scarcely,  by  any  possibility,  exceed  the  limits  of 
endurance.  The  recollection,  that  it  is  but  a  copy  and 
a  fiction,  is  quite  sufficient  to  keep  it  down  to  a  moderate  10 
temperature,  and  to  make  it  welcome  as  the  sign  or 
the  harbinger  of  that  agitation  of  which  the  soul  is 
avaricious.  It  is  not,  then,  from  any  peculiar  quality  in 
painful  emotion's  that  they  become  capable  of  affording 
the  delight  which  attends  them  in  tragic  or  pathetic  poetry  15 
—  but  merely  from  the  circumstance  of  their  being  more 
intense  and  powerful  than  any  other  emotions  of  which 
the  mind  is  susceptible.  If  it  was  the  constitution  of  our 
nature  to  feel  joy  as  keenly,  or  to  sympathise  with  it  as 
heartily  as  we  do  with  sorrow,  we  have  no  doubt  that  no  20 
other  sensation  would  ever  be  intentionally  excited  by 
the  artists  that  minister  to  delight.  But  the  fact  is,  that 
the  pleasures  of  which  we  are  capable  are  slight  and  feeble 
compared  with  the  pains  that  we  may  endure  ;  and  that, 
feeble  as  they  are,  the  sympathy  which  they  excite  falls  25 
much  more  short  of  the  original  emotion.  When  the 
object,  therefore,  is  to  obtain  sensation,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  to  which  of  the  two  fountains  we  should 
repair  ;  and  if  there  be  but  few  pains  in  real  life  which 
are  not,  in  some  measure,  endeared  to  us  by  the  emotions  30 
with  which  they  are  attended,  we  may  be  pretty  sure,  that 
the  more  distress  we  introduce  into  poetry,  the  more  we 
shall  rivet  the  attention  and  attract  the  admiration  of  the 
reader. 


74  THE  BOROUGH, 

There  is  but  one  exception  to  this  rule  —  and  it  brings 
us  back  from  the  apology  of  Mr.  Crabbe,  to  his  condem- 
nation. Every  form  of  distress,  whether  it  proceed  from 
passion  or  from  fortune,  and  whether  it  fall  upon  vice  or 

5  virtue,  adds  to  the  interest  and  the  charm  of  poetry— 
except  only  that  which  is  connected  with  ideas  of  Disgust 
—the  least  taint  of  which  disenchants  the  whole  scene, 
and  puts  an  end  both  to  delight  and  sympathy.     But  what 
is  it,  it  may  be  asked,  that  is  the  proper  object  of  disgust? 

10  and  what  is  the  precise  description  of  things  which  we 
think  Mr.  Crabbe  so  inexcusable  for  admitting?  It  is 
not  easy  to  define  a  term  at  once  so  simple  and  so  sig- 
nificant ;  but  it  may  not  be  without  its  use,  to  indicate, 
in  a  general  way,  our  conception  of  its  true  force  and 

15  comprehension. 

It  is  needless,  we  suppose,  to  explain  what  are  the 
objects  of  disgust  in  physical  or  external  existences. 
These  are  sufficiently  plain  and  unequivocal  ;  and  it  is 
universally  admitted,  that  all  mention  of  them  must  be 

20  carefully  excluded  from  every  poetical  description.  With 
regard,  again,  to  human  character,  action,  and  feeling,  we 
should  be  inclined  to  term  every  thing  disgusting,  which 
represented  misery,  without  making  any  appeal  to  our  love, 
respect,  or  admiration.  If  the  suffering  person  be 

25  amiable,  the  delightful  feeling  of  love  and  affection 
tempers  the  pain  which  the  contemplation  of  suffering 
has  a  tendency  to  excite,  and  enhances  it  into  the 
stronger,  and  therefore  more  attractive,  sensation  of 
pity.  If  there  be  great  power  or  energy,  however,  united 

3°  to  guilt  or  wretchedness,  the  mixture  of  admiration  exalts 
the  emotion  into  something  that  is  sublime  and  pleasing : 
and  even  in  cases  of  mean  and  atrocious,  but  efficient 
guilt,  our  sympathy  with  the  victims  upon  whom  it  is 
practised,  and  our  active  indignation  and  desire  of 


THE  BOROUGH.  75 

vengeance,  reconcile  us  to  the  humiliating  display,  and 
make  a  compound  that,  upon  the  whole,  is  productive  of 
pleasure. 

The  only  sufferers,  then,  upon  whom  we  cannot  bear 
to  look,  are  those  that  excite  pain  by  their  wretchedness,    5 
while  they  are  too  depraved  to  be  the  objects  of  affection, 
and  too  weak    and    insignificant   to   be    the    causes    of 
misery  to  others,  or,  consequently,  of  indignation  to  the 
spectators.     Such  are  the  depraved,  abject,  diseased,  and 
neglected  poor  —  creatures  in  whom  every  thing  amiable  10 
or  respectable  has  been  extinguished  by  sordid  passions 
or  brutal  debauchery  ;  —  who  have  no  means  of  doing 
the  mischief  of    which  they  are  capable  —  whom    every 
one  despises,  and  no  one  can  either  love  or  fear.     On  the 
characters,  the  miseries,  and  the  vices  of  such  beings,  we  15 
look  with  disgust  merely  :    and,  though   it  may  perhaps 
serve  some  moral  purpose,  occasionally  to  set  before  us 
this  humiliating  spectacle  of  human  nature  sunk  to  utter 
worthlessness  and  insignificance,  it  is  altogether  in  vain  to 
think  of  exciting  pity  or  horror,  by  the  truest  and  most  20 
forcible    representations    of    their    sufferings    or    their 
enormities.     They  have  no  hold  upon  any  of  the  feelings 
that  lead  us  to  take  an  interest  in  our  fellow-creatures  ;  — 
we    turn    away    from    them,    therefore,    with     loathing 
and  dispassionate  aversion  ;  —  we  feel  our  imaginations  25 
polluted  by  the  intrusion  of  any  images  connected  with 
them  ;    and  are  offended   and    disgusted  when   we    are 
forced   to   look  closely  upon    those    festering   heaps    of 
moral  filth  and  corruption. 

It  is  with  concern  we  add,  that  we  know  no  writer  who  3° 
has  sinned  so  deeply  in  this  respect  as  Mr.  Crabbe  —  who 
has  so  often  presented   us   with   spectacles  which   it   is 
purely  painful  and  degrading  to  contemplate,  and  bestowed 
such  powers  of  conception  and  expression  in  giving  us 


7  6  THE  BOROUGH. 

distinct  ideas  of  what  we  must  ever  abhor  to  remember. 
If  Mr.  Crabbe  had  been  a  person  of  ordinary  talents, 
we  might  have  accounted  for  his  error,  in  some  degree, 
by  supposing,  that  his  frequent  success  in  treating  of 
5  subjects  which  had  been  usually  rejected  by  other  poets, 
had  at  length  led  him  to  disregard,  altogether,  the  common 
impressions  of  mankind  as  to  what  was  allowable  and 
what  inadmissible  in  poetry  ;  and  to  reckon  the  unalter- 
able laws  by  which  nature  has  regulated  our  sympathies, 

10  among  the  prejudices  by  which  they  were  shackled  and 
impaired.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  conceive  how  a 
writer  of  his  quick  and  exact  observation  should  have 
failed  to  perceive,  that  there  is  not  a  single  instance  of  a 
serious  interest  being  excited  by  an  object  of  disgust  ; 

15  and  that  Shakespeare  himself,  who  has  ventured  every 
thing,  has  never  ventured  to  shock  our  feelings  with  the 
crimes  or  the  sufferings  of  beings  absolutely  without 
power  or  principle.  Independent  of  universal  practice, 
too,  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  conceive  how  he  should 

20  have  overlooked  the  reason  on  which  this  practice  is 
founded  ;  for  though  it  be  generally  true,  that  poetical 
representations  of  suffering  and  of  guilt  produce  emotion, 
and  consequently  delight,  yet  it  certainly  did  not  require 
the  penetration  of  Mr.  Crabbe  to  discover,  that  there  is 

25  a  degree  of  depravity  which  counteracts  our  sympathy 
with  suffering,  and  a  degree  of  insignificance  which 
extinguishes  our  interest  in  guilt.  We  abstain  from 
giving  any  extracts  in  support  of  this  accusation  ;  but 
those  who  have  perused  the  volume  before  us,  will  have 

30  already  recollected  the  story  of  Frederic  Thompson,  of 
Abel  Keene,  of  Blaney,  of  Benbow,  and  a  good  part 
of  those  of  Grimes  and  Ellen  Orford  —  besides  many 
shorter  passages.  It  is  now  time,  however,  to  give  the 
reader  a  more  particular  account  of  the  work  which 

35  contains  them. 


TALES  OF  THE  HALL. 


By  the  Reverend  George  Crabbe.   2  vols.  8vo,  pp.  670.    London,  1819. 


MR.  CRABBE  is  the  greatest  mannerist,  perhaps,  of  all 
our  living  poets  ;  and  it  is  rather  unfortunate  that  the 
most  prominent  features  of  his  mannerism  are  not  the 
most  pleasing.  The  homely,  quaint,  and  prosaic  style 
—  the  flat,  and  often  broken  jingling  versification  —  the  5 
eternal  full-lengths  of  low  and  worthless  characters  — 
with  their  accustomed  garnishings  of  sly  jokes  and  familiar 
moralising  —  are  all  on  the  surface  of  his  writings  ;  and 
are  almost  unavoidably  the  things  by  which  we  are 
first  reminded  of  him,  when  we  take  up  any  of  his  new  10 
productions.  Yet  they  are  not  the  things  that  truly  con- 
stitute his  peculiar  manner  ;  or  give  that  character  by 
which  he  will,  and  ought  to  be,  remembered  with  future 
generations.  It  is  plain  enough,  indeed,  that  these  are 
things  that  will  make  nobody  remembered  —  and  can  15 
never,  therefore,  be  really  characteristic  of  some  of  the 
most  original  and  powerful  poetry  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen. 

Mr.  C.,  accordingly,  has  other  gifts  ;  and  those  not 
less  peculiar  or  less  strongly  marked  than  the  blemishes  20 
with  which. they  are  contrasted  ;  an  unrivalled  and  almost 
magical  power  of  observation,  resulting  in  descriptions  so 
true  to  nature  as  to  strike  us  rather  as  transcripts  than 
imitations  —  an  anatomy  of  character  and  feeling  not  less 
exquisite  and  searching  —  an  occasional  touch  of  match-  25 


78  TALES  OF   THE  HALL. 

less  tenderness  —  and  a  deep  and  dreadful  pathetic,  inter- 
spersed by  fits,  and  strangely  interwoven  with  the  most 
minute  and  humble  of  his  details.  Add  to  all  this  the 
sure  and  profound  sagacity  of  the  remarks  with  which  he 
5  every  now  and  then  startles  us  in  the  midst  of  very 
unambitious  discussions  ;  —  and  the  weight  and  terseness 
of  the  maxims  which  he  drops,  like  oracular  responses, 
on  occasions  that  give  no  promise  of  such  a  revelation  ; 
—  and  last,  though  not  least,  that  sweet  and  seldom 

10  sounded  chord  of  Lyrical  inspiration,  the  lightest  touch 
of  which  instantly  charms  away  all  harshness  from  his 
numbers,  and  all  lowness  from  his  themes  —  and  at  once 
exalts  him  to  a  level  with  the  most  energetic  and  inven- 
tive poets  of  his  age. 

15  These,  we  think,  are  the  true  characteristics  of  the 
genius  of  this  great  writer  ;  and  it  is  in  their  mixture 
with  the  oddities  and  defects  to  which  we  have  already 
alluded,  that  the  peculiarity  of  his  manner  seems  to  us 
substantially  to  consist.  The  ingredients  may  all  of  them 

20  be  found,  we  suppose,  in  other  writers  ;  but  their  com- 
bination—  in  such  proportions  at  least  as  occur  in  this 
instance  —  may  safely  be  pronounced  to  be  original. 

Extraordinary,    however,    as    this    combination    must 
appear,  it  does  not  seem  very  difficult  to  conceive  in  what 

25  way  it  may  have  arisen,  and,  so  far  from  regarding  it  as 
a  proof  of  singular  humorousness,  caprice,  or  affectation 
in  the  individual,  we  are  rather  inclined  to  hold  that 
something  approaching  to  it  must  be  the  natural  result  of 
a  long  habit  of  observation  in  a  man  of  genius,  possessed 

30  of  that  temper  and  disposition  which  is  the  us.ua!  accom- 
paniment of  such  a  habit  ;  and  that  the  same  strangely 
compounded  and  apparently  incongruous  assemblage  of 
themes  and  sentiments  would  be  frequently  produced 
under  such  circumstances  —  if  authors  had  oftener  the 


TALES   OF   THE  HALL.  79 

courage  to  write  from  their  own  impressions,  and  had  less 
fear  of  the  laugh  or  wonder  of  the  more  shallow  and 
barren  part  of  their  readers. 

A  great  talent  for  observation,  and  a  delight  in  the 
exercise  of  it  —  the  power  and  the  practice  of  dissecting    5 
and  disentangling  that  subtle  and  complicated  tissue,  of 
habit,  and  self-love,  and  affection,  which  constitute  human 
character  —  seems  to  us,  in  all  cases,  to  imply  a  contem- 
plative, rather  than  an  active  disposition.     It  can  only 
exist,    indeed,    where    there    is    a   good    deal    of    social  10 
sympathy  ;  for,  without  this,  the  occupation  could  excite 
no  interest,  and  afford  no  satisfaction  —  but  only  such  a 
measure  and  sort  of  sympathy  as  is  gratified  by  being  a 
spectator,  and  not  an  actor  on  the  great  theatre  of  life  — 
and  leads  its  possessor  rather  to  look  with  eagerness  on  15 
the  feats  and  the  fortunes  of  others,  than  to  take  a  share 
for  himself  in  the  game  that  is  played  before  him.     Some 
stirring  and  vigorous  spirits  there  are,  no  doubt,  in  which 
this  taste  and  talent  is  combined  with  a  more  thorough 
and  effective  sympathy  ;  and  leads  to  the  study  of  men's  20 
characters  by  an  actual  and  hearty  participation  in  their 
various    passions    and    pursuits;  —  though    it    is    to   be 
remarked,  that  when  such  persons  embody  their  observa- 
tions in  writing,  they  will  generally  be  found  to  exhibit 
their  characters  in  action,  rather  than  to  describe  them  in  25 
the  abstract ;  and  to  let  their  various  personages  disclose 
themselves  and  their  peculiarities,  as  it  were  spontane- 
ously, and  without  help  or  preparation,  in  their  ordinary 
conduct    and    speech  —  of   all    which    we    have    a   very 
splendid  and  striking  example  in  the  Tales  of  My  Land-  3° 
lord,  and  the  other  pieces  of  that  extraordinary  writer. 
In    the    common    case,  however,    a   great    observer,    we 
believe,  will  be  found,  pretty  certainly,  to  be  a  person  of 
a  shy  and  retiring  temper  —  who  does  not  mingle  enough 


o  TALES   OF    THE   HALL. 

with  the  people  he  surveys,  to  be  heated  with  their 
passions,  or  infected  with  their  delusions  —  and  who  has 
usually  been  led,  indeed,  to  take  up  the  office  of  a  looker 
on,  from  some  little  infirmity  of  nerves,  gr  weakness  of 
5  spirits,  which  has  unfitted  him  from  playing  a  more 
active  part  on  the  busy  scene  of  existence. 

Now,  it  is  very  obvious,  we  think,  that  this  contem- 
plative turn,  and  this  alienation  from  the  vulgar  pursuits 
of  mankind,  must  in  the  first  place,  produce  a  great  con- 

10  tempt  for  most  of  those  pursuits,  and  the  objects  they 
seek  to  obtain  —  a  levelling  of  the  factitious  distinctions 
which  human  pride  and  vanity  have  established  in  the 
world,  and  a  mingled  scorn  and  compassion  for  the  lofty 
pretensions  under  which  men  so  often  disguise  the  noth- 

15  ingness  of  their  chosen  occupations.  When  the  many- 
coloured  scene  of  life,  with  all  its  petty  agitations,  its 
shifting  pomps,  and  perishable  passions,  is  surveyed  by 
one  who  does  not  mix  in  its  business,  it  is  impossible 
that  it  should  not  appear  a  very  pitiable  and  almost 

20  ridiculous  affair ;  or  that  the  heart  should  not  echo 
back  the  brief  and  emphatic  exclamation  of  the  mighty 

dramatist  — 

—  "  Life's  a  poor  player, 

Who  frets  and  struts  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 
25  And  then  is  heard  no  more  !  "- 

Or  the    more  sarcastic  amplification  of  it,  in  the  words 
of  our  great  moral  poet  — 

"  Behold  the  Child,  by  Nature's  kindly  law, 
Pleas'd  with  a  rattle,  tickl'd  with  a  straw  ! 

30  Some  livelier  plaything  gives  our  Youth  delight, 

A  little  louder,  but  as  empty  quite  : 
Scarfs,  garters,  gold  our  riper  years  engage  ; 
And  beads  and  prayer-books  are  the  toys  of  Age  ! 
Pleas'd  with  this  bauble  still  as  that  before, 

35  Till  tir'd  we  sleep  —  and  Life 's  poor  play  is  o'er!" 


TALES   OF    THE   HALL.  8 1 

This  is  the  more  solemn  view  of  the  subject :  —  But 
the  first  fruits  of  observation  are  most  commonly  found 
to  issue  in  Satire  —  the  unmasking  the  vain  pretenders  to 
wisdom,  and  worth,  and  happiness,  with  whom  society  is 
infested,  and  holding  up  to  the  derision  of  mankind  those  5 
meannesses  of  the  great,  those  miseries  of  the  fortunate, 
and  those 

"  Fears  of  the  brave,  and  follies  of  the  wise," 

which  the  eye  of   a  dispassionate   observer   so   quickly 
detects  under  the  glittering  exterior  by  which  they  would  10 
fain  be  disguised  —  and  which  bring   pretty  much  to  a 
level  the  intellect,  and  morals,  and  enjoyments,  of  the 
great  mass  of  mankind. 

This  misanthropic  end  has  unquestionably  been  by  far 
the  most  common  result  of  a  habit  of  observation  ;  and  15 
that  in  which  its  effects  have  most  generally  terminated  : 
Yet  we  cannot  bring  ourselves  to  think  that  it  is  their 
just  or  natural  termination.      Something,  no  doubt,  will 
depend  on  the  temper  of  the  individual,  and  the  propor- 
tions in  which  the  gall  and  the  milk  of  human  kindness  20 
have  been  originally  mingled  in  his  composition.  —  Yet 
satirists,  we  think,  have  not  in  general  been  ill-natured 
persons  —  and  we    are    inclined    rather    to    ascribe    this 
limited  and  uncharitable  application  of  their  powers  of 
observation  to  their  love  of  fame  and  popularity, — which  25 
are  well  known  to  be  best  secured  by  successful  ridicule 
or    invective  —  or,    quite    as    probably,    indeed,    to   the 
narrowness  and  insufficiency  of  the   observations  them- 
selves, and  the  imperfection  of  their  talents  for  their  due 
conduct  and  extension.     It  is  certain,  at  least,  we  think,  30 
that  the  satirist  makes  use  of  but  half  the  discoveries  of 
the  observer  ;  and  teaches  but  half — the  worser  half- 
of  the  lessons  which  may  be  deduced  from  his  occupa- 


82  TALES   OF   THE   HALL. 

tion.  He  puts  down,  indeed,  the  proud  pretensions  of 
the  great  and  arrogant,  and  levels  the  vain  distinctions 
which  human  ambition  has  established  among  the 
brethren  of  mankind ;  he 

5  "  Bares  the  mean  heart  that  lurks  beneath  a  Star," 

—  and  destroys  the  illusions  which  would  limit  our 
sympathy  to  the  forward  and  figuring  persons  of  this 
world  —  the  favourites  of  fame  and  fortune.  But  the 
true  result  of  observation  should  be,  not  so  much  to  cast 

I0  down  the  proud,  as  to  raise  up  the  lowly  ;  —  not  so 
much  to  diminish  our  sympathy  with  the  powerful  and 
renowned,  as  to  extend  it  to  all,  who,  in  humbler  condi- 
tions, have  the  same,  or  still  higher  claims  on  our  esteem 
or  affection.  —  It  is  not  surely  the  natural  consequence 

15  of  learning  to  judge  truly  of  the  characters  of  men,  that 
we  should  despise  or  be  indifferent  about  them  all ;  — 
and,  though  we  have  learned   to   see   through   the  false 
glare  which  plays  round  the  envied  summits  of  existence, 
and  to  know  how  little  dignity,  or  happiness,  or  worth,  or 

20  wisdom,  may  sometimes  belong  to  the  possessors  of 
power,  and  fortune,  and  learning  and  renown,  —  it  does 
not  follow,  by  any  means,  that  we  should  look  upon  the 
whole  of  human  life  as  a  mere  deceit  and  imposture, 
or  think  the  concerns  of  our  species  fit  subjects  only 

25  for  scorn  and  derision.  Our  promptitude  to  admire  and 
to  envy  will  indeed  be  corrected,  our  enthusiasm  abated, 
and  our  distrust  of  appearances  increased  ;  —  but  the 
sympathies  and  affections  of  our  nature  will  continue,  and 
be  better  directed  —  our  love  of  our  kind  will  not  be 

30  diminished  —  and  our  indulgence  for  their  faults  and 
follies,  "if  we  read  our  lesson  aright,  will  be  signally 
strengthened  and  confirmed.  The  true  and  proper  effect, 
therefore,  of  a  habit  of  observation,  and  a  thorough  and 


TALES   OF   THE   HALL.  83 

penetrating  knowledge  of  human  character,  will  be,  not 
to  extinguish  our  sympathy,  but  to  extend  it  —  to  turn, 
no  doubt,  many  a  throb  of  admiration,  and  many  a  sigh 
of  love  into  a  smile  of  derison  or  of  pity  ;  but  at  the 
same  time  to  reveal  much  that  commands  our  homage  5 
and  excites  our  affection,  in  those  humble  and  unexplored 
regions  of  the  heart  and  understanding,  which  never 
engage  the  attention  of  the  incurious,  —  and  to  bring  the 
whole  family  of  mankind  nearer  to  a  level,  by  finding  out 
latent  merits  as  well  as  latent  defects  in  all  its  members,  10 
and  compensating  the  flaws  that  are  detected  in  the 
boasted  ornaments  of  life,  by  bringing  to  light  the  rich- 
ness and  the  lustre  that  sleep  in  the  mines  beneath  its 
surface. 

\Ye  are  afraid  some  of  our  readers  may  not  at  once  15 
perceive  the   application  of  these  profound   remarks  to 
the  subject  immediately  before  us.     But  there  are  others, 
we  doubt  not,  who  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  they  are 
intended  to  explain  how  Mr.  Crabbe,  and  other  persons 
with  the  same  gift  of  observation,  should  so  often  busy  20 
themselves   with   what   may  be   considered  as   low  and 
vulgar  character ;  and,  declining  all  dealings  with  heroes 
and  heroic  topics,  should  not  only  venture  to  seek  for  an 
interest  in  the  concerns  of  ordinary  mortals,  but  actually 
intersperse  small  pieces  of  ridicule  with  their  undignified  25 
pathos,  and  endeavour  to  make  their  readers  look  on  their 
book  with  the  same  mingled  feelings  of  compassion  and 
amusement,  with  which  —  unnatural  as  it  may  appear  to 
the  readers  of  poetry  —  they,  and  all  judicious  observers, 
actually  look  upon  human  life  and  human  nature. — This,  30 
we  are  persuaded,  is  the  true  key  to  the  greater  part  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  author  before  us ;  and  though  we 
have  disserted  upon  it  a  little  longer  than  was  necessary, 
we  really  think  it  may  enable  our  readers  to  comprehend 


84  TALES   OF   THE   HALL. 

him,  and  our  remarks  on  him,  something  better  than  they 
could  have  done  without  it. 

There  is,  as  everybody  must  have  felt,  a  strange  satire 
and  sympathy  in  all  his  productions  —  a  great  kindliness 
5  and  compassion  for  the  errors  and  sufferings  of  our  poor 
human  nature,  but  a  strong  distrust  of  its  heroic  virtues 
and  high  pretensions.  His  heart  is  always  open  to  pity, 
and  all  the  milder  emotions  —  but  there  is  little  aspira- 
tion after  the  grand  and  sublime  of  character,  nor  very 

10  much  encouragement  for  raptures  and  ecstasies  of  any 
description.  These,  he  seems  to  think,  are  things  rather 
too  fine  for  the  said  poor  human  nature  :  and  that,  in  our 
low  and  erring  condition,  it  is  a  little  ridiculous  to  pre- 
tend, either  to  very  exalted  and  immaculate  virtue,  or 

15  very  pure  and  exquisite  happiness.  He  not  only  never 
meddles,  therefore,  with  the  delicate  distresses  and  noble 
fires  of  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  tragic  and  epic  fable, 
but  may  generally  be  detected  indulging  in  a  lurking 
sneer  at  the  pomp  and  vanity  of  all  such  superfine 

20  imaginations  —  and  turning  from  them,  to  draw  men  in 
their  true  postures  and  dimensions,  and  with  all  the 
imperfections  that  actually  belong  to  their  condition:  — 
the  prosperous  and  happy  overshadowed  with  passing 
clouds  of  ennui,  and  disturbed  with  little  flaws  of  bad 

25  humour  and  discontent — the  great  and  wise  beset  at 
times  with  strange  weaknesses  and  meannesses  and 
paltry  vexations  —  and  even  the  most  virtuous  and 
enlightened  falling  far  below  the  standard  of  poetical 
perfection  —  and  stooping  every  now  and  then  to  paltry 

30  jealousies  and  prejudices  —  or  sinking  into  shabby  sensu- 
alities—  or  meditating  on  their  own  excellence  and 
importance,  with  a  ludicrous  and  lamentable  anxiety. 

This  is   one   side   of   the    picture ;    and   characterises 
sufficiently  the  satirical  vein  of  our  author :  But  the  other 


TALES  OF  THE  HALL.  85 

is  the  most  extensive  and  important.  In  rejecting  the 
vulgar  sources  of  interest  in  poetical  narratives,  and 
reducing  his  ideal  persons  to  the  standard  of  reality, 
Mr.  C.  does  by  no  means  seek  to  extinguish  the  sparks 
of  human  sympathy  within  us,  or  to  throw  any  damp  on  5 
the  curiosity  with  which  we  naturally  explore  the  char- 
acters of  each  other.  On  the  contrary,  he  has  afforded 
new  and  more  wholesome  food  for  all  those  propensities 
—  and,  by  placing  before  us  those  details  which  our 
pride  or  fastidiousness  is  so  apt  to  overlook,  has  dis-  10 
closed,  in  all  their  truth  and  simplicity,  the  native  and 
unadulterated  workings  of  those  affections  which  are  at 
the  bottom  of  all  social  interest,  and  are  really  rendered 
less  touching  by  the  exaggerations  of  more  ambitious 
artists — while  he  exhibits,  with  admirable  force  and  15 
endless  variety,  all  those  combinations  of  passions  and 
opinions,  and  all  that  cross-play  of  selfishness  and 
vanity,  and  indolence  and  ambition,  and  habit  and 
reason,  which  make  up  the  intellectual  character  of 
individuals,  and  present  to  every  one  an  instructive  20 
picture  of  his  neighbour  or  himself.  Seeing,  by  the  per- 
fection of  his  art,  the  master  passions  in  their  springs, 
and  the  high  capacities  in  their  rudiments  —  and  having 
acquired  the  gift  of  tracing  all  the  propensities  and 
marking  tendencies  of  our  plastic  nature,  in  their  first  25 
slight  indications,  or  even  from  the  aspect  of  the  dis- 
guises they  so  often  assume,  he  does  not  need,  in  order 
to  draw  out  his  characters  in  all  their  life  and  distinct- 
ness, the  vulgar  demonstration  of  those  striking  and 
decided  actions  by  which  their  maturity  is  proclaimed  3° 
even  to  the  careless  and  inattentive; — but  delights  to 
point  out  to  his  readers,  the  seeds  or  tender  filaments  of 
those  talents  and  feelings  which  wait  only  for  occasion 
and  opportunity  to  burst  out  and  astonish  the  world  — 


86  TALES   OF   THE   HALL. 

and  to  accustom  them  to  trace,  in  characters  and  actions 
apparently  of  the  most  ordinary  description,  the  self-same 
attributes  that,  under  other  circumstances,  would  attract 
universal  attention,  and  furnish  themes  for  the  most 
5  popular  and  impassioned  descriptions. 

That  he  should  not  be  guided  in  the  choice  of  his 
subject  by  any  regard  to  the  rank  or  condition  which  his 
persons  hold  in  society,  may  easily  be  imagined ;  and, 
with  a  view  to  the  ends  he  aims  at,  might  readily  be 

10  forgiven.  But  we  fear  that  his  passion  for  observation, 
and  the  delight  he  takes  in  tracing  out  and  analyzing  all 
the  little  traits  that  indicate  character,  and  all  the  little 
circumstances  that  influence  it,  have  sometimes  led  him 
to  be  careless  about  his  selection  of  the  instances  in 

15  which  it  was  to  be  exhibited,  or  at  least  to  select  them 
upon  principles  very  different  from  those  which  give  them 
an  interest  in  the  eyes  of  ordinary  readers.  For  the 
purpose  of  mere  anatomy,  beauty  of  form  or  complexion 
are  things  quite  indifferent ;  and  the  physiologist,  who 

20  examines  plants  only  to  study  their  internal  structure, 
and  to  make  himself  master  of  the  contrivances  by  which 
their  various  functions  are  performed,  pays  no  regard  to 
the  brilliancy  of  their  hues,  the  sweetness  of  their  odours, 
or  the  graces  of  their  form.  Those  who  come  to  him 

25  for  the  sole  purpose  of  acquiring  knowledge  may  partici- 
pate perhaps  in  this  indifference  ;  but  the  world  at  large 
will  wonder  at  them  —  and  he  will  engage  fewer  pupils  to 
listen  to  his  instructions,  than  if  he  had  condescended  in 
some  degree  to  consult  their  predilections  in  the  begin- 

30  ning.  It  is  the  same  case,  we  think,  in  many  respects, 
with  Mr.  Crabbe.  Relying  for  the  interest  he  is  to  pro- 
duce, on  the  curious  expositions  he  is  to  make  of  the 
elements  of  human  character,  or  at  least  finding  his  own 
chief  gratification  in  those  subtle  investigations,  he  seems 


TALES  or  THE  HALL.  87 

to  care  very  little  upon  what  particular  individuals  he 
pitches  for  the  purpose  of  these  demonstrations.  Almost 
every  human  mind,  he  seems  to  think,  may  serve  to 
display  that  fine  and  mysterious  mechanism  which  it  is 
his  delight  to  explore  and  explain ;  —  and  almost  every  5 
condition,  and  every  history  of  life,  afford  occasions  to 
show  how  it  may  be  put  into  action,  and  pass  through  its 
various  combinations.  It  seems,  therefore,  almost  as  if 
he  had  caught  up  the  first  dozen  or  two  of  persons  that 
came  across  him  in  the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  —  and  then  10 
fitting  in  his  little  window  in  their  breasts,  and  applying 
his  tests  and  instruments  of  observation,  had  set  himself 
about  such  a  minute  and  curious  scrutiny  of  their  whole 
habits,  history,  adventures,  and  dispositions,  as  he 
thought  must  ultimately  create  not  only  a  familiarity,  but  15 
an  interest,  which  the  first  aspect  of  the  subject  was  far 
enough  from  leading  any  one  to  expect.  That  he 
succeeds  more  frequently  than  could  have  been  antici- 
pated, we  are  very  willing  to  allow.  But  we  cannot  help 
feeling,  also,  that  a  little  more  pains  bestowed  in  the  20 
selection  of  his  characters,  would  have  made  his  power 
of  observation  and  description  tell  with  tenfold  effect ; 
and  that,  in  spite  of  the  exquisite  truth  of  his  delinea- 
tions, and  the  fineness  of  the  perceptions  by  which  he 
was  enabled  to  make  them,  it  is  impossible  to  take  any  25 
considerable  interest  in  many  of  his  personages,  or  to 
avoid  feeling  some  degree  of  fatigue  at  the  minute  and 
patient  exposition  that  is  made  of  all  that  belongs  to 
them. 


ENDYMION. 


A  Poetic  Romance.     By  John  Keats.     8vo,  pp.  207.     London,  1818. 


WE  had  never  happened  to  see  either  of  these  volumes 
till  very  lately  —  and  have  been  exceedingly  struck  with 
the  genius  they  display,  and  the  spirit  of  poetry  which 
breathes  through  all  their  extravagance.  That  imitation 
5  of  our  old  writers,  and  especially  of  our  older  dramatists, 
to  which  we  cannot  help  flattering  ourselves  that  we  have 
somewhat  contributed,  has  brought  on,  as  it  were,  a 
second  spring  in  our  poetry  ;  —  and  few  of  its  blossoms 
are  either  more  profuse  of  sweetness,  or  richer  in  promise, 

10  than  this  which  is  now  before  us.  Mr.  Keats,  we  under- 
stand, is  still  a  very  young  man  ;  and  his  whole  works, 
indeed,  bear  evidence  enough  of  the  fact.  They  are  full 
of  extravagance  and  irregularity,  rash  attempts  at  origi- 
nality, interminable  wanderings,  and  excessive  obscurity. 

15  They  manifestly  require,  therefore,  all  the  indulgence 
that  can  be  claimed  for  a  first  attempt  :  —  But  we  think 
it  no  less  plain  that  they  deserve  it  :  For  they  are  flushed 
all  over  with  the  rich  lights  of  fancy  ;  and  so  coloured 
and  bestrewn  with  the  flowers  of  poetry  ;  that  even  while 

20  perplexed  and  bewildered  in  their  labyrinths,  it  is  im- 
possible to  resist  the  intoxication  of  their  sweetness,  or 
to  shut  our  hearts  to  the  enchantments  they  so  lavishly 
present.  The  models  upon  which  he  has  formed  himself, 
in  the  Endymion,  the  earliest  and  by  much  the  most  con- 

25  siderable    of    his    poems,    are    obviously    The    Faithful 


END  YMION.  89 

Shepherdess  of  Fletcher,  and  the  Sad  Shepherd  of  Ben 
Jonson  ; — the  exquisite  metres  and  inspired  diction  of 
which  he  has  copied  with  great  boldness  and  fidelity  — 
and,  like  his  great  originals,  has  also  contrived  to  impart 
to  the  whole  piece  that  true  rural   and  poetical   air—     5 
which  breathes  only  in  them,  and  in  Theocritus  —  which 
is  at  once  homely  and  majestic,  luxurious  and  rude,  and 
sets  before  us  the  genuine  sights  and  sounds  and  smells 
of  the  country,  with  all  the  magic  and  grace  of  Elysium. 
His  subject  has  the  disadvantage  of  being  Mythological  ;  10 
and  in  this  respect,  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  raised 
and  rapturous  tone  it  consequently  assumes,  his  poem,  it 
may  be  thought,  would  be  better  compared  to  the  Comus 
and   the   Arcades   of   Milton,   of  which,   also,  there   are 
many  traces  of  imitation.     The  great  distinction,   how-  15 
ever,    between    him    and    these   divine   authors,   is,   that 
imagination  in  them  is  subordinate  to  reason  and  judg- 
ment, while,  with  him,  it  is  paramount  and  supreme  — 
that  their  ornaments  and  images  are   employed   to  em- 
bellish  and  recommend  just  sentiments,  engaging  inci-  20 
dents,  and  natural  characters,  while  his  are  poured  out 
without    measure    or    restraint,    and    with    no    apparent 
design  but  to  unburden  the  breast  of  the  author,  and  give 
vent  to  the  overflowing  vein  of  his  fancy.     The  thin  and 
scanty  tissue  of  his  story  is  merely  the  light  framework  25 
on  which   his   florid  wreaths  are  suspended  ;  and  while 
his  imaginations  go  rambling  and  entangling  themselves 
every  where,  like  wild  honeysuckles,  all  idea   of   sober 
reason,  and  plan,  and  consistency,  is  utterly  forgotten, 
and  "strangled  in  their  waste  fertility."     A  great  part  of  30 
the  work,  indeed,  is  written  in  the  strangest  and  most 
fantastical  manner  that  can  be  imagined.     It  seems  as  if 
the  author  had  ventured  every  thing  that  occured  to  him 
in  the  shape  of  a  glittering  image  or  striking  expression 


go  ENDYMION. 

—  taken  the  first  word  that  presented  itself  to  make  up  a 
rhyme,  and  then  made  that  word  the  germ  of  a  new 
cluster  of  images  —  a  hint  for  a  new  excursion  of  the 
fancy  —  and  so  wandered  on,  equally  forgetful  whence  he 
5  came,  and  heedless  whither  he  was  going,  till  he  had 
covered  his  pages  with  an  interminable  arabesque  of 
connected  and  incongruous  figures,  that  multiplied  as 
they  extended,  and  were  only  harmonised  by  the  bright- 
ness of  their  tints,  and  the  graces  of  their  forms.  In 

10  this  rash  and  headlong  career  he  has  of  course  many 
lapses  and  failures.  There  is  no  work,  accordingly,  from 
which  a  malicious  critic  could  cull  more  matter  for 
ridicule,  or  select  more  obscure,  unnatural,  or  absurd 
passages.  But  we  do  not  take  that  to  be  our  orifice  ;  — 

15  and  must  beg  leave,  on  the  contrary,  to  say,  that  any  one 
who,  on  this  account,  would  represent  the  whole  poem  as 
despicable,  must  either  have  no  notion  of  poetry,  or  no 
regard  to  truth. 

It  is,  in  truth,  at  least  as  full  of  genius  as  of  absurdity  ; 

20  and  he  who  does  not  find  a  great  deal  in  it  to  admire  and 
to  give  delight,  cannot  in  his  heart  see  much  beauty  in 
the  two  exquisite  dramas  to  which  we  have  already 
alluded  ;  or  find  any  great  pleasure  in  some  of  the  finest 
creations  of  Milton  and  Shakespeare.  There  are  very 

25  many  such  persons,  we  verily  believe,  even  among  the 
reading  and  judicious  part  of  the  community  —  correct 
scholars,  we  have  no  doubt,  many  of  them,  and,  it  may 
be,  very  classical  composers  in  prose  and  in  verse  —  but 
utterly  ignorant,  on  our  view  of  the  matter,  of  the  true 

30  genius  of  English  poetry,  and  incapable  of  estimating  its 
appropriate  and  most  exquisite  beauties.  With  that 
spirit  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  Mr.  Keats  is 
deeply  imbued  —  and  of  those  beauties  he  has  presented 
us  with  many  striking  examples.  We  are  very  much 


ENDYMION.  91 

inclined  indeed  to  add,  that  we  do  not  know  any  book 
which  we  would   sooner  employ  as  a  test  to  ascertain 
whether  any  one  had  in  him  a  native  relish  for  poetry, 
and  a  genuine  sensibility  to   its  intrinsic   charm.     The 
greater  and  more  distinguished  poets  of  our  country  have    5 
so  much   else  in  them,  to  gratify  other  tastes  and  pro- 
pensities,   that   they  are    pretty  sure    to    captivate    and 
amuse  those  to  whom  their  poetry  may  be  but  an  hinder- 
ance    and    obstruction,    as    well    as    those    to    whom    it 
constitutes  their  chief  attraction.     The   interest  of  the  10 
stories   they  tell  —  the   vivacity  of   the   characters   they 
delineate  —  the   weight   and  force    of   the    maxims    and 
sentiments  in  which  they  abound  —  the  very  pathos,  and 
wit  and  humour  they  display,  which  may  all  and  each  of 
them  exist  apart  from  their  poetry,  and  independent  of  it,  15 
are  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  their  popularity,  with- 
out referring  much  to  that  still  higher  gift,  by  which  they 
subdue  to  their  enchantments  those  whose  souls  are  truly 
attuned    to    the    finer   impulses    of   poetry.     It  is   only, 
therefore,  where  those  other  recommendations  are  want-  20 
ing,  or  exist  in  a  weaker  degree,  that  the  true  force  of 
the  attraction,  exercised  by  the  pure  poetry  with  which 
they  are  so  often  combined,  can  be  fairly  appreciated  :  — 
where,  without  much  incident  or  many  characters,  and 
with   little   wit,   wisdom,   or   arrangement,   a   number   of  25 
bright  pictures  are  presented  to  the  imagination,  and  a 
fine  feeling  expressed  of  those  mysterious  relations  by 
which  visible  external  things  are  assimilated  with  inward 
thoughts    and   emotions,   and    become    the    images    and 
exponents    of   all   passions   and   affections.     To   an   un-  30 
poetical  reader  such  passages  will  generally  appear  mere 
raving  and  absurdity  —  and  to  this  censure  a  very  great 
part  of  the  volumes  before  us  will  certainly  be  exposed, 
with  this  class  of  readers.     Even  in  the  judgment  of  a 


92  ENDYMION. 

fitter  audience,  however,  it  must,  we  fear,  be  admitted, 
that,  besides  the  riot  and  extravagance  of  his  fancy  the 
scope  and  substance  of  Mr.  Keats's  poetry  is  rather  too 
dreamy  and  abstracted  to  excite  the  strongest  interest,  or 
5  to  sustain  the  attention  through  a  work  of  any  great 
compass  or  extent.  He  deals  too  much  with  shadowy  and 
incomprehensible  beings,  and  is  too  constantly  rapt  into 
an  extramundane  Elysium,  to  command  a  lasting  interest 
with  ordinary  mortals  —  and  must  employ  the  agency  of 

10  more  varied  and  coarser  emotions,  if  he  wishes  to  take 
rank  with  the  enduring  poets  of  this  or  of  former  genera- 
tions. There  is  something  very  curious,  too,  we  think, 
in  the  way  in  which  he,  and  Mr.  Barry  Cornwall  also, 
have  dealt  with  the  Pagan  mythology,  of  which  they  have 

15  made  so  much  use  in  their  poetry.  Instead  of  presenting 
its  imaginary  persons  under  the  trite  and  vulgar  traits 
that  belong  to  them  in  the  ordinary  systems,  little  more 
is  borrowed  from  these  than  the  general  conception  of 
their  condition  and  relations  ;  and  an  original  character 

20  and  distinct  individuality  is  then  bestowed  upon  them, 
which  has  all  the  merit  of  invention,  and  all  the  grace 
and  attraction  of  the  fictions  on  which  it  is  engrafted. 
The  ancients,  though  they  probably  did  not  stand  in  any 
great  awe  of  their  deities,  have  yet  abstained  very  much 

25  from  any  minute  or  dramatic  representation  of  their 
feelings  and  affections.  In  Hesiod  and  Homer,  they 
are  broadly  delineated  by  some  of  their  actions  and 
adventures,  and  introduced  to  us  merely  as  the  agents  in 
those  particular  transactions  ;  while  in  the  Hymns,  from 

30  those  ascribed  to  Orpheus  and  Homer,  down  to  those  of 
Callimachus,  we  have  little  but  pompous  epithets  and 
invocations,  with  a  flattering  commemoration  of  their 
most  famous  exploits  —  and  are  never  allowed  to  enter 
into  their  bosoms,  or  follow  out  the  train  of  their  feelings, 


ENDYMION.  93 

with  the  presumption  of  our  human  sympathy.  Except 
the  love-song  of  the  Cyclops  to  his  Sea  Nymph  in 
Theocritus  —  the  Lamentation  of  .Venus  for  Adonis  in 
Moschus  —  and  the  more  recent  Legend  of  Apuleius,  we 
scarcely  recollect  a  passage  in  all  the  writings  of  anti-  5 
quity  in  which  the  passions  of  an  immortal  are  fairly  dis- 
closed to  the  scrutiny  and  observation  of  men.  The 
author  before  us,  however,  and  some  of  his  contem- 
poraries, have  dealt  differently  with  the  subject  ; — and, 
sheltering  the  violence  of  the  fiction  under  the  ancient  10 
traditionary  fable,  have  in  reality  created  and  imagined 
an  entire  new  set  of  characters  ;  and  brought  closely  and 
minutely  before  us  the  loves  and  sorrows  and  perplexities 
of  beings,  with  whose  names  and  supernatural  attributes 
we  had  long  been  familiar,  without  any  sense  or  feeling  15 
of  their  personal  character.  We  have  more  than  doubts 
of  the  fitness  of  such  personages  to  maintain  a  permanent 
interest  with  the  modern  public  ; — but  the  way  in  which 
they  are  here  managed  certainly  gives  them  the  best 
chance  that  now  remains  for  them  ;  and,  at  all  events,  it  20 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  effect  is  striking  and  graceful. 
But  we  must  now  proceed  to  our  extracts. 


J 

CHILDE  HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE. 


Canto  the  Third.     By  Lord  Byron.     8vo,  pp.  'jg.     London,     1816. 


IF  the  finest  poetry  be  that  which  leaves  the  deepest 
impression  on  the  minds  of  its  readers  —  and  this  is  not 
the  worst  test  of  its  excellence  —  Lord  Byron,  we  think, 
must  be  allowed  to  take  precedence  of  all  his  distin- 
5  guished  contemporaries.  He  has  not  the  variety  of 
Scott  —  nor  the  delicacy  of  Campbell  —  nor  the  absolute 
truth  of  Crabbe  —  nor  the  polished  sparkling  of  Moore  ; 
but  in  force  of  diction,  and  inextinguishable  energy  of 
sentiment,  he  clearly  surpasses  them  all.  "  Words  that 

10  breathe,  and  thoughts  that  burn,"  are  not  merely  the 
ornaments,  but  the  common  staple  of  his  poetry  ;  and 
he  is  not  inspired  or  impressive  only  in  some  happy 
passages,  but  through  the  whole  body  and  tissue  of  his 
composition.  It  was  an  unavoidable  condition,  perhaps, 

r5  of    this   higher   excellence,    that   his   scene    should    be 

1  I  have  already  said  so  much  of  Lord  Byron  with  reference  to 
his  Dramatic  productions,  that  I  cannot  now  afford  to  republish 
more  than  one  other  paper  on  the  subject  of  his  poetry  in  general  : 
And  I  select  this,  rather  because  it  refers  to  a  greater  variety  of 
these  compositions,  than  because  it  deals  with  such  as  are  either 
absolutely  the  best,  or  the  most  characteristic  of  his  genius.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that  all  his  writings  are  characteristic  ;  and  lead, 
pretty  much  alike,  to  those  views  of  the  dark  and  the  bright  parts 
of  his  nature,  which  have  led  me,  I  fear  (though  almost  irresistibly) 
into  observations  more  personal  to  the  character  of  the  author,  than 
should  generally  be  permitted  to  a  mere  literary  censor. 


CHILD E   IIAKOLJTS   PILGRIMAGE.  95 

narrow,  and  his  persons  few.  To  compass  such  ends  as 
he  had  in  view,  it  was  necessary  to  reject  all  ordinary 
agents,  and  all  trivial  combinations.  He  could  not 
possibly  be  amusing,  or  ingenious  or  playful  ;  or  hope  to 
maintain  the  requisite  pitch  of  interest  by  the  recitation  5 
of  sprightly  adventures,  or  the  opposition  of  common 
characters.  To  produce  great  effects,  in  short,  he  felt 
that  it  was  necessary  to  deal  only  with  the  greater 
passions  —  with  the  exaltations  of  a  daring  fancy,  and 
the  errors  of  a  lofty  intellect  —  with  the  pride,  the  10 
terrors,  and  the  agonies  of  strong  emotion  —  the  fire  and 
air  alone  of  our  human  elements. 

In  this  respect,  and  in  his  general  notion  of  the  end 
and  the  means  of  poetry,  we  have  sometimes  thought 
that  his  views  fell  more  in  with  those  of  the  Lake  poets,  15 
than  of  any  other  existing  party  in  the  poetical  common- 
wealth :  And,  in  some  of  his  later  productions  especially, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  his  occasional 
approaches  to  the  style  and  manner  of  this  class  of 
writers.  Lord  Byron,  however,  it  should  be  observed,  20 
like  all  other  persons  of  a  quick  sense  of  beauty,  and 
sure  enough  of  their  own  originality  to  be  in  no  fear 
of  paltry  imputations,  is  a  great  mimic  of  styles  and 
manners,  and  a  great  borrower  of  external  character. 
He  and  Scott,  accordingly,  are  full  of  imitations  of  all  25 
the  writers  from  whom  they  have  ever  derived  gratifica- 
tion ;  and  the  two  most  original  writers  of  the  age  might 
appear,  to  superficial  observers,  to  be  the  most  deeply 
indebted  to  their  predecessors.  In  this  particular  instance, 
we  have  no  fault  to  find  with  Lord  Byron.  For  undoubt-  30 
edly  the  finer  passages  of  Wordsworth  and  Southey  have 
in  them  wherewithal  to  lend  an  impulse  to  the  utmost 
ambition  of  rival  genius  ;  and  their  diction  and  manner 
of  writing  is  frequently  both  striking  and  original.  But 


96  CII1LDE   HAROLD'S  J'lLGRJMAGE. 

we  must  say,  that  it  would  afford  us  still  greater  pleasure 
to  find  these  tuneful  gentlemen  returning  the  compliment 
which  Lord  Byron  has  here  paid  to  their  talents  ;  and 
forming  themselves  on  the  model  rather  of  his  imitations, 
5  than  of  their  own  originals.  —  In  those  imitations  they 
will  find  that,  though  he  is  sometimes  abundantly  mystical, 
he  never,  or  at  least  very  rarely,  indulges  in  absolute 
nonsense  —  never  takes  his  lofty  flights  upon  mean  or 
ridiculous  occasions  —  and,  above  all,  never  dilutes  his 

10  strong  conceptions,  and  magnificent  imaginations,  with  a 
flood  of  oppressive  verbosity.  On  the  contrary,  he  is,  of 
all  living  writers,  the  most  concise  and  condensed  ; 
and,  we  would  fain  hope,  may  go  far,  by  his  example,  to 
redeem  the  great  reproach  of  our  modern  literature  —  its 

15  intolerable  prolixity  and  redundance.  In  his  nervous 
and  manly  lines,  we  find  no  elaborate  amplification  of 
common  sentiments  —  no  ostentatious  polishing  of  pretty 
expressions  ;  and  we  really  think  that  the  brilliant  success 
which  has  rewarded  his  disdain  of  those  paltry  artifices, 

20  should  put  to  shame  for  ever  that  puling  and  self-admiring 
race,  who  can  live  through  half  a  volume  on  the  stock  of 
a  single  thought,  and  expatiate  over  divers  fair  quarto 
pages  with  the  details  of  one  tedious  description.  In 
Lord  Byron,  on  the  contrary,  we  have  a  perpetual  stream 

25  of  thick-coming  fancies  —  an  eternal  spring  of  fresh- 
blown  images,  which  seem  called  into  existence  by  the 
sudden  flash  of  those  glowing  thoughts  and  overwhelming 
emotions,  that  struggle  for  expression  through  the  whole 
flow  of  his  poetry  —  and  impart  to  a  diction  that  is  often 

30  abrupt  and  irregular,  a  force  and  a  charm  which  frequently 
realize  all  that  is  said  of  inspiration. 

With  all  these  undoubted  claims  to  our  admiration, 
however,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  noble  author 
before  us  has  still  something  to  learn,  and  a  good  deal  to 


CHILD E   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE.  97 

correct.  He  is  frequently  abrupt  and  careless,  and  some- 
times obscure.  There  are  marks,  occasionally,  of  effort 
and  straining  after  an  emphasis,  which  is  generally 
spontaneous ;  and,  above  all,  there  is  far  too  great  a 
monotony  in  the  moral  colouring  of  his  pictures,  and  too  5 
much  repetition  of  the  same  sentiments  and  maxims. 
He  delights  too  exclusively  in  the  delineation  of  a 
certain  morbid  exaltation  of  character  and  feeling  —  a 
sort  of  demoniacal  sublimity,  not  without  some  traits  of 
the  ruined  Archangel.  He  is  haunted  almost  perpetually  10 
with  the  image  of  a  being  feeding  and  fed  upon  by 
violent  passions,  and  the  recollections  of  the  catas- 
trophes they  have  occasioned  :  And,  though  worn  out 
by  their  past  indulgence,  unable  to  sustain  the  burden 
of  an  existence  which  they  do  not  continue  to  animate  :  15 
—  full  of  pride,  and  revenge,  and  obduracy — disdaining 
life  and  death,  and  mankind  and  himself — and  trampling, 
in  his  scorn,  not  only  upon  the  falsehood  and  formality 
of  polished  life,  but  upon  its  tame  virtues  and  slavish 
devotion  :  Yet  envying,  by  fits,  the  very  beings  he  de-  20 
spises,  and  melting  into  mere  softness  and  compassion, 
when  the  helplessness  of  childhood  or  the  frailty  of 
woman  make  an  appeal  to  his  generosity.  Such  is  the 
person  with  whom  we  are  called  upon  almost  exclu- 
sively to  sympathise  in  all  the  greater  productions  of  25 
this  distinguished  writer  :  —  In  Childe  Harold  —  in  the 
Corsair — in  Lara  —  in  the  Siege  of  Corinth  —  in  Parisina, 
and  in  most  of  the  smaller  pieces. 

It  is  impossible  to  represent  such  a  character  better 
than  Lord  Byron  has  done  in  all  these  productions  —  or  30 
indeed  to  represent  any  thing  more  terrible  in  its  anger, 
or  more  attractive  in  its  relenting.  In  point  of  effect,  we 
readily  admit,  that  no  one  character  can  be  more  poetical 
or  impressive  :  —  But  it  is  really  too  much  to  find  the 


98  CHILDE   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE. 

scene  perpetually  filled  by  one  character  —  not  only  in 
all  the  acts  of  each  several  drama,  but  in  all  the  different 
dramas  of  the  series  ;  —  and,  grand  and  impressive  as  it 
is,  we  feel  at  last  that  these  very  qualities  make  some 

5  relief  more  indispensable,  and  oppress  the  spirits  of 
ordinary  mortals  with  too  deep  an  impression  of  awe 
and  repulsion.  There  is  too  much  guilt  in  short,  and 
too  much  gloom,  in  the  leading  character  ;  —  and  though 
it  be  a  fine  thing  to  gaze,  now  and  then,  on  stormy  seas, 

10  and  thunder-shaken  mountains,  we  should  prefer  passing 
our  days  in  sheltered  valleys,  and  by  the  murmur  of 
calmer  waters. 

We  are  aware  that  these  metaphors  may  be  turned 
against  us  —  and  that,  without  metaphor,  it  may  be  said 

15  that  men  do  not  pass  their  days  in  reading  poetry  —  and 
that,  as  they  may  look  into  Lord  Byron  only  about  as 
often  as  they  look  abroad  upon  tempests,  they  have  no 
more  reason  to  complain  of  him  for  being  grand  and 
gloomy,  than  to  complain  of  the  same  qualities  in  the 

20  glaciers  and  volcanoes  which  they  go  so  far  to  visit. 
Painters,  too,  it  may  be  said,  have  often  gained  great 
reputation  by  their  representations  of  tigers  and  other 
ferocious  animals,  or  of  caverns  and  banditti  —  and 
poets  should  be  allowed,  without  reproach,  to  indulge 

25  in  analogous  exercises.  We  are  far  from  thinking  that 
there  is  no  weight  in  these  considerations  ;  and  feel  how 
plausibly  it  may  be  said,  that  we  have  no  better  reason 
for  a  great  part  of  our  complaint,  than  that  an  author,  to 
whom  we  are  already  very  greatly  indebted,  has  chosen 

30  rather  to  please  himself,  than  us,  in  the  use  he  makes  of 
his  talents. 

This,  no  doubt,  seems  both  unreasonable  and  ungrate- 
ful. But  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  a  public  benefactor 
becomes  a  debtor  to  the  public,  and  is,  in  some  degree, 


CHILD E   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE.  99 

responsible  for  the  employment  of  those  gifts  which  seem 
to  be  conferred  upon  him,  not  merely  for  his  own  delight, 
but  for  the  delight  and  improvement  of  his  fellows  through 
all  generations.  Independent  of  this,  however,  we  think 
there  is  a  reply  to  the  apology.  A  great  living  poet  is  5 
not  like  a  distant  volcano,  or  an  occasional  tempest.  He 
is  a  volcano  in  the  heart  of  our  land,  and  a  cloud  that 
hangs  over  our  dwellings ;  and  we  have  some  reason 
to  complain,  if,  instead  of  genial  warmth  and  grateful 
shade,  he  voluntarily  darkens  and  inflames  our  atmos-  10 
phere  with  perpetual  fiery  explosions  and  pitchy  vapours. 
Lord  Byron's  poetry,  in  short,  is  too  attractive  and  too 
famous  to  lie  dormant  or  inoperative  ;  and,  therefore,  if 
it  produce  any  painful  or  pernicious  effects,  there  will 
be  murmurs,  and  ought  to  be  suggestions  of  alteration.  15 
Now,  though  an  artist  may  draw  fighting  tigers  and 
hungry  lions  in  as  lively  or  natural  a  way  as  he  can, 
without  giving  any  encouragement  to  human  ferocity, 
or  even  much  alarm  to  human  fear,  the  case  is  somewhat 
different,  when  a  poet  represents  men  with  tiger-like  20 
dispositions  :  —  and  yet  more  so,  when  he  exhausts  the 
resources  of  his  genius  to  make  this  terrible  being 
interesting  and  attractive,  and  to  represent  all  the  lofty 
virtues  as  the  natural  allies  of  his  ferocity.  It  is  still 
worse  when  he  proceeds  to  show,  that  all  these  precious  25 
gifts  of  dauntless  courage,  strong  affection,  and  high 
imagination,  are  not  only  akin  to  guilt,  but  the  parents 
of  misery  ;  —  and  that  those  only  have  any  chance  of 
tranquillity  or  happiness  in  this  world,  whom  it  is  the 
object  of  his  poetry  to  make  us  shun  and  despise.  30 

These,  it  appears  to  us,  are  not  merely  errors  in  taste, 
but  perversions  of  morality ;  and,  as  a  great  poet  is 
necessarily  a  moral  teacher,  and  gives  forth  his  ethical 
lessons,  in  general  with  far  more  effect  and  authority 


100  CHILDE   HAROLD'S   PILGRIMAGE. 

than  any  of  his  graver  brethren,  he  is  peculiarly  liable 
to  the  censures  reserved  for  those  who  turn  the  means  of 
improvement  to  purposes  of  corruption. 

It  may  no  doubt  be  said,  that  poetry  in  general  tends 
5  less  to  the  useful  than  the  splendid  qualities  of  our 
nature  —  that  a  character  poetically  good  has  long  been 
distinguished  from  one  that  is  morally  so  —  and  that, 
ever  since  the  time  of  Achilles,  our  sympathies,  on  such 
occasions,  have  been  chiefly  engrossed  by  persons  whose 

10  deportment  is  by  no  means  exemplary ;  and  who  in  many 
points  approach  to  the  temperament  of  Lord  Byron's  ideal 
hero.  There  is  some  truth  in  this  suggestion  also.  But 
other  poets,  in  thejirst  place,  do  not  allow  their  favourites 
so  outrageous  a  monopoly  of  the  glory  and  interest  of  the 

15  piece — and  sin  less  therefore  against  the  laws  either  of 
poetical  or  distributive  justice.  In  the  second  place,  their 
heroes  are  not,  generally,  either  so  bad  or  so  good  as 
Lord  Byron's — and  do  not  indeed  very  much  exceed  the 
standard  of  truth  and  nature,  in  either  of  the  extremes. 

20  His,  however,  are  as  monstrous  and  unnatural  as  centaurs, 
and  hippogriffs  —  and  must  ever  figure  in  the  eye  of  sober 
reason  as  so  many  bright  and  hateful  impossibilities.  But 
the  most  important  distinction  is,  that  the  other  poets 
who  deal  in  peccant  heroes,  neither  feel  nor  express  that 

25  ardent  affection  for  them,  which  is  visible  in  the  whole 
of  this  author's  delineations  ;  but  merely  make  use  of 
them  as  necessary  agents  in  the  extraordinary  adventures 
they  have  to  detail,  and  persons  whose  minged  vices  and 
virtues  are  requisite  to  bring  about  the  catastrophe  of 

30  their  story.  In  Lord  Byron,  however,  the  interest  of  the 
story,  where  there  happens  to  be  one,  which  is  not  always 
the  case,  is  uniformly  postponed  to  that  of  the  character 
itself — into  which  he  enters  so  deeply,  and  with  so 
extraordinary  a  fondness,  that  he  generally  continues 


CHILDE   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE.  loi 

to  speak  in  its  language,  after  it  has  been  dismissed 
from  the  stage  ;  and  to  inculcate,  on  his  own  authority, 
the  same  sentiments  which  had  been  previously  recom- 
mended by  its  example.  We  do  not  consider  it  as  unfair, 
therefore,  to  say  that  Lord  Byron  appears  to  us  to  be  5 
the  zealous  apostle  of  a  certain  fierce  and  magnificent 
misanthropy ;  which  has  already  saddened  his  poetry 
with  too  deep  a  shade,  and  not  only  led  to  a  great  mis- 
application of  great  talents,  but  contributed  to  render 
popular  some  very  false  estimates  of  the  constituents  of  10 
human  happiness  and  merit.  It  is  irksome,  however,  to 
dwell  upon  observations  so  general  —  and  we  shall  prob- 
ably have  better  means  of  illustrating  these  remarks,  if 
they  are  really  well  founded,  when  we  come  to  speak  of 
the  particular  publications  by  which  they  have  now  been  15 
suggested. 

We  had  the  good  fortune,  we  believe,  to  be  among  the 
first  who  proclaimed  the  rising  of  a  new  luminary,  on  the 
appearance  of  Childe  Harold  on  the  poetical  horizon,  — 
and  we  pursued  his  course  with  due  attention  through  20 
several  of  the  constellations.  If  we  have  lately  omitted 
to  record  his  progress  with  the  same  accuracy,  it  is  by  no 
means  because  we  have  regarded  it  with  more  indifference, 
or  supposed  that  it  would  be  less  interesting  to  the 
public  —  but  because  it  was  so  extremely  conspicuous  as  25 
no  longer  to  require  the  notices  of  an  official  observer. 
In  general,  we  do  not  think  it  necessary,  nor  indeed 
quite  fair,  to  oppress  our  readers  with  an  account  of 
works,  which  are  as  well  known  to  them  as  to  ourselves  ; 
or  with  a  repetition  of  sentiments  in  which  all  the  world  30 
is  agreed.  Wherever,  a  work,  therefore,  is  very  popular, 
and  where  the  general  opinion  of  its  merits  appears  to  be 
substantially  right,  we  think  ourselves  at  liberty  to  leave 
it  out  of  our  chronicle,  without  incurring  the  censure  of 


102  CHILD E   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE. 

neglect  or  inattention.  A  very  rigorous  application  of 
this  maxim  might  have  saved  our  readers  the  trouble  of 
reading  what  we  now  write  —  and,  to  confess  the  truth, 
we  write  it  rather  to  gratify  ourselves,  than  with  the  hope 

5  of  giving  them  much  information.  At  the  same  time, 
some  short  notice  of  the  progress  of  such  a  writer  ought, 
perhaps,  to  appear  in  his  comtemporary  journals,  as  a 
tribute  due  to  his  eminence  ;  —  and  a  zealous  critic  can 
scarcely  set  about  examining  the  merits  of  any  work,  or 

10  the  nature  of  its  reception  by  the  public,  without  speedily 
discovering  very  urgent  cause  for  his  admonitions,  both 
to  the  author  and  his  admirers. 


* 
*  * 


The  most  considerable  of  [the  author's  recent  publica- 

15  tions,]  is  the  Third  Canto  of  Childe  Harold ;  a  work 
which  has  the  disadvantage  of  all  continuations,  in 
admitting  of  little  absolute  novelty  in  the  plan  of  the 
work  or  the  cast  of  its  character,  and  must,  besides, 
remind  all  Lord  Byron's  readers  of  the  extraordinary 

20  effect  produced  by  the  sudden  blazing  forth  of  his 
genius,  upon  their  first  introduction  to  that  title.  In 
spite  of  all  this,  however,  we  are  persuaded  that  this 
Third  Part  of  the  poem  will  not  be  pronounced  in- 
ferior to  either  of  the  former ;  and,  we  think,  will  prob- 

25  ably  be  ranked  above  them  by  those  who  have  been  most 
delighted  with  the  whole.  The  great  success  of  this 
singular  production,  indeed,  has  always  appeared  to  us 
an  extraordinary  proof  of  its  merits ;  for,  with  all  its 
genius,  it  does  not  belong  to  a  sort  of  poetry  that  rises 

3°  easily  to  popularity.  —  It  has  no  story  or  action  —  very 
little  variety  of  character  —  and  a  great  deal  of  reasoning 
and  reflection  of  no  very  attractive  tenor.  It  is  sub- 
stantially a  contemplative  and  ethical  work,  diversified 
with  fine  description,  and  adorned  or  overshaded  by  the 


CHILDE  HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE.  103 

perpetual  presence  of  one  emphatic  person,  who  is  some- 
times the  author,  and  sometimes  the  object,  of  the  reflec- 
tions on  which  the  interest  is  chiefly  rested.  It  required, 
no  doubt,  great  force  of  writing,  and  a  decided  tone  of 
originality  to  recommend  a  performance  of  this  sort  so  5 
powerfully  as  this  has  been  recommended  to  public  notice 
and  admiration  — •  and  those  high  characteristics  belong 
perhaps  still  more  eminently  to  the  part  that  is  now 
before  us,  than  to  any  of  the  former.  There  is  the  same 
stern  and  lofty  disdain  of  mankind,  and  their  ordinary  10 
pursuits  and  enjoyments ;  with  the  same  bright  gaze  on 
nature,  and  the  same  magic  power  of  giving  interest  and 
effect  to  her  delineations  —  but  mixed  up,  we  think,  with 
deeper  and  more  matured  reflections,  and  a  more  intense 
sensibility  to  all  that  is  grand  or  lovely  in  the  external  15 
world.  — •  Harold,  in  short,  is  somewhat  older  since  he 
last  appeared  upon  the  scene  —  and  while  the  vigour  of 
his  intellect  has  been  confirmed,  and  his  confidence  in 
his  own  opinions  increased,  his  mind  has  also  become 
more  sensitive  ;  and  his  misanthropy,  thus  softened  over  20 
by  habits  of  calmer  contemplation,  appears  less  active 
and  impatient,  even  although  more  deeply  rooted  than 
before.  Undoubtedly  the  finest  parts  of  the  poem  before 
us,  are  those  which  thus  embody  the  weight  of  his  moral 
sentiments  ;  or  disclose  the  lofty  sympathy  which  binds  25 
the  despiser  of  Man  to  the  glorious  aspects  of  Nature. 
It  is  in  these,  we  think,  that  the  great  attractions  of  the 
work  consist,  and  the  strength  of  the  author's  genius  is 
seen.  The  narrative  and  mere  description  are  of  far 
inferior  interest.  With  reference  to  the  sentiments  and  3° 
opinions,  however,  which  thus  give  its  distinguishing 
character  to  the  piece,  we  must  say,  that  it  seems  no 
longer  possible  to  ascribe  them  to  the  ideal  person  whose 
name  it  bears,  or  to  any  other  than  the  author  himself. — 


104  C1IILDE   HAROLD'S  PILGRIMAGE. 

Lord  Byron,  we  think,  has  formerly  complained  of  those 
who  identified  him  with  his  hero,  or  supposed  that  Harold 
was  but  the  expositor  of  his  own  feelings  and  opinions  ; 
—  and  in  noticing  the  former  portions  of  the  work,  we 

5  thought  it  unbecoming  to  give  any  countenance  to  such 
a  supposition.  —  In  this  last  part,  however,  it  is  really 
impracticable  to  distinguish  them.  —  Not  only  do  the 
author  and  his  hero  travel  and  reflect  together, — but,  in 
truth,  we  scarcely  ever  have  any  distinct  intimation  to 

10  which  of  them  the  sentiments  so  energetically  expressed 
are  to  be  ascribed;  and  in  those  which-are- unequivocally 
given  as  those  of  the  noble  author  himself,  there  is  the 
very  same  tone  of  misanthropy,  sadness,  and  scorn,  which 
we  were  formerly  willing  to  regard  as  a  part  of  the 

15  assumed  costume  of  the  Childe.  We  are  far  from  sup- 
posing, indeed,  that  Lord  Byron  would  disavow  any  of 
these  sentiments ;  and  though  there  are  some  which  we 
must  ever  think  it  most  unfortunate  to  entertain,  and 
others  which  it  appears  improper  to  have  published,  the 

20  greater  part  are  admirable,  and  cannot  be  perused  with- 
out emotion,  even  by  those  to  whom  they  may  appear 
erroneous. 


THE  EXCURSION. 


Being  a  Portion  of  the  Recluse,  a  Poem.     By  William  Wordsworth. 
4(0,  pp.  447.     London, 


THIS  will  never  do t^-It  bears  no  doubt  the  stamp  of 
the  author's  heart  and  fancy  :  But  unfortunately  not  half 
so  visibly  as  that  of  his  peculiar  system.  His  former 

\  1 1  have  spoken  in  many  places  rather  too  bitterly  and  confidently 
of  the  faults  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's  poetry  :  And  forgetting  that, 
even  on  my  own  view  of  them,  they  were  but  faults  of  taste,  or 
venial  self-partiality,  have  sometimes  visited  them,  I  fear,  with  an 
asperity  which  should  be  reserved  for  objects  of  Moral  reprobation. 
If  I  were  now  to  deal  with  the  whole  question  of  his  poetical  merits, 
though  my  judgment  might  not  be  substantially  different,  I  hope  I 
should  repress  the  greater  part  of  these  vivacites  of  expression  :  and 
indeed  so  strong  has  been  my  feeling  in  this  way,  that,  considering 
how  much  I  have  always  loved  many  of  the  attributes  of  his  Genius, 
and  how  entirely  I  respect  his  Character,  it  did  at  first  occur  to  me 
whether  it  was  quite  fitting  that,  in  my  old  age  and  his,  I  should 
include  in  this  publication  any  of  those  critiques  which  may  have 
formerly  given  pain  or  offence,  to  him  or  his  admirers.  But,  when 
I  reflected  that  the  mischief,  if  there  really  ever  was  any,  was  long 
ago  done,  and  that  I  still  retain,  in  substance,  the  opinions  which  I 
should  now  like  to  have  seen  more  gently  expressed,  I  felt  that  to 
omit  all  notice  of  them  on  the  present  occasion,  might  be  held  to 
import  a  retractation  which  I  am  as  far  as  possible  from  intending  ; 
or  even  be  represented  as  a  very  shabby  way  of  backing  out  of 
sentiments  which  should  either  be  manfully  persisted  in,  or  openly 
renounced,  and  abandoned  as  untenable. 

I  finally  resolved,  therefore,  to  reprint  my  review  of  "  The  Excur- 
sion "  ;  which  contains  a  pretty  full  view  of  my  griefs  and  charges 
against  Mr.  Wordsworth  ;  set  forth  too,  I  believe,  in  a  more 


106  THE    EXCURSION. 

poems  were  intended  to  recommend  that  system,  and  to 
bespeak  favour  for  it  by  their  individual   merit  ;  —  but 
this,  we  suspect,  must  be  recommended  by  the  system  — 
and    can    only   expect    to    succeed    where    it    has    been 
5  previously  established.     It  is  longer,  weaker,  and  tamer,  J 

temperate  strain  than  most  of  my  other  inculpations,  —  and  of 
which  I  think  I  may  now  venture  to  say  farther  that  if  the  faults  are 
unsparingly  noted,  the  beauties  are  not  penuriously  or  grudgingly 
allowed  ;  but  commended  to  the  admiration  of  the  reader  with  at 
least  as  much  heartiness  and  good-will. 

But  I  have  also  reprinted  a  short  paper  on  the  same  author's 
"  White  Doe  of  Rylstone," — in  which  there  certainly  is  no  praise, 
or  notice  of  beauties,  to  set  against  the  very  unqualified  censures  of 
which  it  is  wholly  made  up.  I  have  done  this,  however,  not  merely 
because  I  adhere  to  these  censures,  but  chiefly  because  it  seemed 
necessary  to  bring  me  fairly  to  issue  with  those  who  may  not  concur 
in  them.  I  can  easily  understand  that  many  whose  admiration  of  the 
Excursion,  or  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  rests  substantially  on  the  passages 
which  I  too  should  join  in  admiring,  may  view  with  greater  indul- 
gence than  I  can  do,  the  tedious  and  flat  passages  with  which  they 
are  interspersed,  and  may  consequently  think  my  censure  of  these 
works  a  great  deal  too  harsh  and  uncharitable.  Between  such 
persons  and  me,  therefore,  there  may  be  no  radical  difference  of 
opinion,  or  contrariety  as  to  piinciples  of  judgment.  But  if  there 
be  any  who  actually  admire  this  White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  or  Peter 
Bell  the  Waggoner,  or  the  Lamentations  of  Martha  Rae,  or  the 
Sonnets  on  the  Punishment  of  Death,  there  can  be  no  such 
ambiguity,  or  means  of  reconcilement.  Now  I  have  been  assured 
not  only  that  there  are  such  persons,  but  that  almost  all  those  who 
seek  to  exalt  Mr.  Wordsworth  as  the  founder  of  a  new  school  of 
poetry,  consider  these  as  by  far  his  best  and  most  characteristic 
productions  ;  and  would  at  once  reject  from  their  communion 
any  one  who  did  not  acknowledge  in  them  the  traces  of  a  high 
inspiration.  Now  I  wish  it  to  be  understood,  that  when  I  speak  with 
general  intolerance  or  impatience  of  the  school  of  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
it  is  to  the  school  holding  these  tenets,  and  applying  these  tests, 
that  I  refer  :  and  I  really  do  not  see  how  I  could  better  explain  the 
grounds  of  my  dissent  from  their  doctrines,  than  by  republishing  my 
remarks  on  this  "  White  Doe." 


THE    EXCURSION.  107 

;  than  any  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's  other  productions  ;  with 
less  boldness  of  originality,  and  less  even  of  that 
extreme  simplicity  and  lowliness  of  tone  which  wavered 
so  prettily,  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  between  silliness  and 
pathos.  We  have  imitations  of  Cowper,  and  even  of  5 
Milton  here  ;  engrafted  on  the  natural  drawl  of  the 
Lakers  —  and  all  diluted  into  harmony  by  that  profuse 
and  irrepressible  wordiness  which  deluges  all  the  blank 

\  verse  of  this  school  of  poetry,  and  lubricates  and  weakens 
the  whole  structure  of  their  style.  10 

Though  it  fairly  fills  four  hundred  and  twenty  good 
quarto    pages,    without    note,    vignette,    or   any    sort   of 
extraneous    assistance,   it   is    stated   in   the    title  —  with 
something   of   an    imprudent    candour  —  to   be   but    "a 
portion  "  of  a  larger  work  ;  and  in  the  preface,  where  an  15 
attempt    is    rather   unsuccessfully  made   to   explain    the 
whole  design,  it  is  still  more  rashly  disclosed,  that  it  is  . 
but   "#  part  of  the  second  part,  of  a  long  and  laborious 
work  "  —  which  is  to  consist  of  three  parts  ! 

What  Mr.  Wordsworth's  ideas  of  length  are,  we  have  20 
no  means  of  accurately  judging  :    But  we   cannot  help 
suspecting  that   they  are  liberal,  to  a  degree    that  will 
alarm  the  weakness  of  most  modern  readers.     As  far  as 
we  can  gather  from  the  preface,  the  entire  poem  —  or  one 
of  them  (for  we  really  are  not  sure  whether  there  is  to  25 
be  one  or  two)  is  of    a  biographical  nature ;    and  is  to 
contain  the   history  of    the   author's   mind,  and  of   the 
origin   and  progress   of   his  poetical  powers,  up  to  the 
period   when   they  were    sufficiently  matured   to    qualify 
him  for  the  great  work  on  which   he  has  been   so  long  30 
employed.      Now,    the    quarto    before    us    contains    an 
account  of  one  of  his  youthful  rambles  in  the  vales  of 
Cumberland,  and  occupies  precisely  the  period  of  three 
days  !    So  that,  by  the  use   of  a  very  powerful  calculus, 


io8  THE    EXCURSION. 

some  estimate  may  be  formed   of  the    probable    extent 
of  the  entire  biography. 

This  small  specimen,  however,  and  the  statements  with 
which  it  is  prefaced,  have  been  sufficient  to  set  our  minds 
at  rest  in  one  particular.  The  case  of  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
we  perceive,  is  now  manifestly  hopeless  ;  and  we  give 
him  up  as  altogether  incurable,  and  beyond  the  power  of 
criticism.  We  cannot  indeed  altogether  omit  taking 
precautions  now  and  then  against  the  spreading  of  the 

10  malady; — but  for  himself,  though  we  shall  watch  the 
progress  of  his  symptoms  as  a  matter  of  professional 
curiosity  and  instruction,  we  really  think  it  right  not  to 
harass  him  any  longer  with  nauseous  remedies,  —  but 
rather  to  throw  in  cordials  and  lenitives,  and  wait  in 

15  patience  for  the  natural  termination  of  the  disorder.  In 
order  to  justify  this  desertion  of  our  patient,  however,  it 
is  proper  to  state  why  we  despair  of  the  success  of  a 
more  active  practice. 

A  man  who  has  been  for  twenty  years  at  work  on  such 

20  matter  as  is  now  before  us,  and  who  comes  complacently 
forward  with  a  whole  quarto  of  it,  after  all  the  admonitions 
he  has  received,  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  "  change 
his  hand,  or  check  his  pride,"  upon  the  suggestion  of  far 
weightier  monitors  than  we  can  pretend  to  be.  Inveterate 

25  habits  must  now  have  given  a  kind  of  sanctity  to  the 
errors  of  early  taste  ;  and  the  very  powers  of  which  we 
lament  the  perversion,  have  probably  become  incapable 
of  any  other  application.  The  very  quantity,  too,  that 
he  has  written,  and  is  at  this  moment  working  up  for 

3°  publication  upon  the  old  pattern,  makes  it  almost  hopeless 
to  look  for  any  change  of  it.  All  this  is  so  much 
capital  already  sunk  in  the  concern  ;  which  must  be 
sacrificed  if  that  be  abandoned  ;  and  no  man  likes  to  give 
up  for  lost  the  time  and  talent  and  labour  which  he  has 


THE    EXCURSION.  109 

embodied  in  any  permanent  production.  We  were  not 
previously  aware  of  these  obstacles  to  Mr.  Wordsworth's 
conversion  ;  and,  considering  the  peculiarities  of  his 
former  writings  merely  as  the  result  of  certain  wanton 
and  capricious  experiments  on  public  taste  and  indul-  5 
gence,  conceived  it  to  be  our  duty  to  discourage  their 
repetition  by  all  the  means  in  our  power.  We  now  see 
clearly,  however,  how  the  case  stands  ;  —  and,  making 
up  our  minds,  though  with  the  most  sincere  pain  and 
reluctance,  to  consider  him  as  finally  lost  to  the  good  10 
cause  of  poetry,  shall  endeavour  to  be  thankful  for  the 
occasional  gleams  of  tenderness  and  beauty  which  the 
natural  force  of  his  imagination  and  affections  must  still 
shed  over  all  his  productions,  —  and  to  which  we  shall 
ever  turn  with  delight,  in  spite  of  the  affectation  and  15 
mysticism  and  prolixity,  with  which  they  are  so  abundantly 
contrasted. 

Long  habits  of  seclusion,  and  an  excessive  ambition  of 
mginality,  can  alone  account  for  the  disproportion  which 
seems  to  exist  between  this  author's  taste  and  his  genius  ;  20 
or  for  the  devotion  with  which  he  has  sacrificed  so  many 
precious  gifts  at  the  shrine  of  those  paltry  idols  which  he 
has  set  up  for  himself  among  his  lakes  and  his  mountains. 
Solitary  musings,  amidst  such  scenes,  might  no  doubt  be 
expected  to  nurse  up  the  mind  to  the  majesty  of  poetical  25 
conception,  —  (^ough-4t--is-~reirraTkaWe5— -that_aU  the 
greater  poets  lived,  or  had  lived,  in  the  full  current  of 
society)  :  —  But  the  collision  of  equal  minds,  —  the 
admonition  of  prevailing  impressions  —  seems  necessary 
to  reduce  its  redundancies,  and  repress  that  tendency  to  30 
extravagance  or  puerility,  into  which  the  self-indulgence 
and  self-admiration  of  genius  is  so  apt  to  be  betrayed, 
when  it  is  allowed  to  wanton,  without  awe  or  restraint,  in 
the  triumph  and  delight  of  its  own  intoxication.  That 


1 1  o  THE    EXCURSION. 

its  flights  should  be  graceful  and  glorious  in  the  eyes  of 

j  men,  it  seems  almost  to  be  necessary  that  they  should  be 

if  made  in  the  consciousness  that  men's  eyes  are  to  behold 

them,  —  and  that    the    inward    transport   and  vigour  by 

5  which    they  are    inspired,    should   be   tempered    by   an 

occasional  reference  to  what  will  be  thought  of  them  by 

those    ultimate    dispensers    of    glory.     An  habitual   and 

general    knowledge    of    the  few  settled   and  permanent 

maxims,  which  form  the  canon  of  general  taste   in  all 

10  large  and  polished  societies  —  a  certain  tact,  which 
informs  us  at  once  that  many  things,  which  we  still  love, 
and  are  moved  by  in  secret,  must  necessarily  be  despised 
as  childish,  or  derided  as  absurd,  in  all  such  societies  — 
though  it  will  not  stand  in  the  place  of  genius,  seems 

15  necessary  to  the  success  of  its  exertions  ;  and  though  it 
will  never  enable  any  one  to  produce  the  higher  beauties 
of  art,  can  alone  secure  the  talent  which  does  produce 
them  from  errors  that  must  render  it  useless.  Those  who 
have  most  of  the  talent,  however,  commonly  acquire  this 

20  knowledge    with    the    greatest    facility  ;  —  and    if    Mr. 
Wordsworth,  instead  of  confining  himself  almost  entirely 
to  the  society  of  the  dalesmen  and  cottagers,  and  little 
\  children,  who  form  the  subjects  of  his  book,  had  conde- 
scended to  mingle  a  little  more  with  the  people  that  were 

25  to  read  and  judge  of  it,  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  its 

texture    might    have    been    considerably  improved  :     At 

least   it   appears  to  us  to  be  absolutely  impossible,  that 

/  any  one  who  had  lived  or  mixed  familiarly  with  men  of 

/    literature  and  ordinary   judgment    in    poetry  (of    course 

30  we    exclude    the    coadjutors    and    disciples    of    his   own 
school)  could  ever  have  fallen  into  such  gross  faults,  or 
so  long  mistaken  them  for  beauties.     His  first  essays  we 
looked  upon    in  a  good  degree  as  poetical  paradoxes,  — 
maintained  experimentally,  in  order  to  display  talent,  and 


THE    EXCURSION.  m 

court  notoriety  ;  —  and  so  maintained,  with  no  more 
serious  belief  in  their  truth,  than  is  usually  generated  by 
an  ingenious  and  animated  defence  of  other  paradoxes. 
But  when  we  find  that  he  has  been  for  twenty  years 
exclusively  employed  upon  articles  of  this  very  fabric,  5 
and  that  he  has  still  enough  of  raw  material  on  hand  to 
keep  him  so  employed  for  twenty  years  to  come,  we  cannot 
refuse  him  the  justice  of  believing  that  he  is  a  sincere 
convert  to  his  own  system,  and  must  ascribe  the  peculi- 
arities of  his  composition,  not  to  any  transient  affectation,  10 
or  accidental  caprice  of  imagination,  but  to  a  settled 
perversity  of  taste  or  understanding,  which  has  been 
fostered,  if  not  altogether  created  by  the  circumstances 
to  which  we  have  alluded. 

The  volume  before  us,  if  we  were  to  describe  it  very  15 
shortly,  we  should  characterise  as  a  tissue  of  moral  and 
devotional   ravings,  in  which   innumerable   changes   are 
rung  upon  a  very  few  simple  and  familiar  ideas  :  —  But 
with   such  an  accompaniment  of  long  words,  long  sen- 
tences,  and  unwieldy  phrases  —  and  such  a  hubbub  of  20 
strained  raptures  and  fantastical  sublimities,  that  it  is 
often  difficult  for  the  most  skilful  and  attentive  student 
to  obtain  a  glimpse  of  the  author's  meaning  —  and  alto- 
gether impossible  for  an   ordinary  reader  to  conjecture 
what    he    is    about.       Moral    and    religious    enthusiasm,  25 
though  undoubtedly  poetical  emotions,  are  at  the  same 
time  but  dangerous  inspirers  of  poetry  ;  nothing  being  so 
apt  to  run  into  interminable  dulness  or  mellifluous  ex- 
travagance,   without  giving  the   unfortunate   author  the 
slightest  intimation  of  his  danger.     His  laudable  zeal  for  30 
the  efficacy  of  his  preachments,  he  very  naturally  mistakes 
for  the  ardour  of  poetical  inspiration  ;  —  and,  while  deal- 
ing out  the  high  words  and  glowing  phrases  which  are 
so  readily  supplied  by  themes  of  this  description,  can 


H2  THE    EXCURSION. 

[scarcely  avoid  believing  that  he  is  eminently  original  and 
impressive  :  —  All  sorts  of  commonplace  notions  and  ex- 
pressions are  sanctified  in  his  eyes,  by  the  sublime  ends 
for  which  they  are  employed  ;  and  the  mystical  verbiage 
5  of   the    Methodist   pulpit    is    repeated,  till    the   speaker 
entertains  no  doubt  that  he  is  the  chosen  organ  of  divine 
truth  and  persuasion.    But  if  such  be  the  common  hazards 
of  seeking  inspiration  from  those  potent  fountains,  it  may 
easily  be  conceived  what  chance  Mr.  Wordsworth  had  of 
10  escaping  their  enchantment,- — with  his  natural  propen- 
sities to  wordiness,   and   his  unlucky  habit  of   debasing 
pathos  with  vulgarity.     The  fact  accordingly  is,  that  in 
this  production  he  is  more  obscure  than  a  Pindaric  poet 
of  the  seventeenth  century  ;    and   more   verbose  "  than 
i<  even  himself  of  yore"  ;  while  the  wilfulness  with  which 
/  he  persists  in  choosing  his  examples  of  intellectual  dignity 
/    and   tenderness    exclusively   from    the    lowest   ranks  of 
society,  will  be  sufficiently  apparent,  from  the  circum- 
stance of  his  having  thought  fit  to  make  his  chief  pro- 
20  locutor  in  this  poetical  dialogue,  and  chief  advocate  of 
Providence   and   Virtue,   an  old  Scotch  Pedlar  —  retired 
indeed  from  business  —  but  still  rambling  about  in  his 
former  haunts,  and  gossiping  among  his  old  customers, 
without  his  pack  on  his  shoulders.     The  other  persons  of 
the  drama  are,  a  retired  military  chaplain,  who  has  grown 
half  an  atheist  and  half  a  misanthrope  —  the  wife  of  an 
unprosperous  weaver  —  a  servant  girl  with  her  natural 
child  —  a  parish  pauper,  and  one  or  two  other  personages 
of  equal  rank  and  dignity. 

30  The  character  of  the  work  is  decidedly  didactic  ;  and 
more  than  nine  tenths  of  it  are  occupied  with  a  species  of 
dialogue,  or  rather  a  series  of  long  sermons  or  harangues 
which  pass  between  the  pedlar,  the  author,  the  old  chap- 
lain, and  a  worthy  vicar,  who  entertains  the  whole  party 


THE    EXCURSION.  113 

at  dinner  on  the  last  day  of  their  excursion.     The  inci- 
dents which  occur  in  the  course  of  it  are  as  few  and  trifling 
as  can  well  be  imagined  ;  —  and  those  which  the  different 
speakers  narrate  in  the  course  of  their  discourses,  are 
introduced  rather  to  illustrate  their  arguments  or  opinions,    5 
than  for  any  interest  they  are  supposed  to  possess  of 
their  own.  —  The  doctrine  which  the  work  is  intended  to 
enforce,  we  are  by  no  means  certain  that  we  have  dis- 
covered.    In  so  far  as  we  can  collect,  however,  it  seems 
to  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  old  familiar  one,|io 
that  a  firm  belief  in  the  providence  of  a  wise  and  benefi-1 
cent  Being  must  be  our  great  stay  and  support  under  all  1 
afflictions  and  perplexities  upon  earth  —  and  that  there   |\i// 
are   indications   of  his  power  and  goodness  in   all  the 
aspects  of  the  visible  universe,  whether  living  or  inan-  15 
imate  —  every  part  of  which  should  therefore  be  regarded 
with  love   and  reverence,   as   exponents   of  those  great 
attributes.     We  can  testify,  at  least,  that  these  salutary 
and  important  truths  are  inculcated  at  far  greater  length, 
and  with  more  repetitions,  than  in  any  ten  volumes  of  po 
sermons  that  we  ever  perused.     It  is  also  maintained,  I 
with  equal  conciseness  and  originality,  that  there  is  fre-  I 
quently  much  good  sense,  as  well  as  much  enjoyment,  in  j  r*\\ 
the  humbler  conditions  of  life  ;  and  that,  in  spite  of  great    * 
vices  and  abuses,  there  is  a  reasonable  allowance  both  of 
happiness  and  goodness  in  society  at  large.     If  there  be 
any  deeper  or  more  recondite   doctrines  in  Mr.  Words- 
worth's book,  we  must  confess  that  they  have  escaped 
us  ;  —  and,  convinced  as  we  are  of  the  truth  and  sound- 
ness of  those  to  which  we  have  alluded,  we  cannot  help  30 
thinking  that  they  might  have  been  better  enforced  with 
less  parade  and  prolixity.     His  effusions  on  what  may  be 
called  the  physiognomy  of  external  nature,  or  its  moral 
and    theological    expression,    are    eminently    fantastic, 


H4  THE    EXCURSION. 

obscure,  and  affected.  —  It  is  quite  time,  however,  that 
we  should  give  the  reader  a  more  particular  account  of 
this  singular  performance. 

Lfrv  *        *        * 

5  f    Our  abstract  of  the  story  has  been  so  extremely  concise 
u 

)» that  it  is  more  than  usually  necessary  for  us  to  lay  some 
\u  specimens  of  the  work  itself  before  our  readers.  Its 
grand  staple,  as  we  have  already  said,  consists  of  a  kind 
of  mystical  morality:  and  the  chief  characteristics  of  the 

io  style  are,  that  it  is  prolix,  and  very  frequently  unintelli- 
gible :  and  though  we  are  sensible  that  no  great  gratifi- 
cation is  to  be  expected  from  the  exhibition  of  those 
qualities,  yet  it  is  necessary  to  give  our  readers  a  taste 
of  them,  both  to  justify  the  sentence  we  have  passed, 

15  and  to  satisfy  them  that  it  was  really  beyond  our  power 
to  present  them  with  any  abstract  or  intelligible  account 
of  those  long  conversations  which  we  have  had  so  much 
occasion  to  notice  in  our  brief  sketch  of  its  contents. 
We  need  give  ourselves  no  trouble,  however,  to  select 

20  passages  for  this  purpose.  Here  is  the  first  that  presents 
itself  to  us  on  opening  the  volume  ;  and  if  our  readers 
can  form  the  slightest  guess  at  its  meaning,  we  must 
give  them  credit  for  a  sagacity  to  which  we  have  no 
pretension. 

25  "  But  by  the  storms  of  circumstance  unshaken, 

And  subject  neither  to  eclipse  or  wane, 
Duty  exists  ;  —  immutably  survive, 
For  our  support,  the  measures  and  the  forms, 
Which  an  abstract  Intelligence  supplies  ; 

30  Whose  kingdom  is,  where  Time  and  Space  are  not : 

Of  other  converse,  which  mind,  soul,  and  heart, 
Do,  with  united  urgency,  require, 
What  more,  that  may  not  perish  ? " 

"  'T  is,  by  comparison,  an  easy  task 
35  Earth  to  despise  ;  but  to  converse  with  Heav'n, 


THE    EXCURSION.  115 

This  is  not  easy  :  —  to  relinquish  all 

We  have,  or  hope,  of  happiness  and  joy, — 

And  stand  in  freedom  loosen'd  from  this  world  ; 

I  deem  not  arduous  ! — but  must  needs  confess 

That  't  is  a  thing  impossible  to  frame  5 

Conceptions  equal  to  the  Soul's  desires." — pp.  144-147. 

This  is  a  fair  sample  of  that  rapturous  mysticism  which 
eludes  all  comprehension,  and  fills  the  despairing  reader 
with  painful  giddiness  and  terror.  The  following,  which 
we  meet  with  on  the  very  next  page,  is  in  the  same  10 
general  strain  :  —  though  the  first  part  of  it  affords  a 
good  specimen  of  the  author's  talent  for  enveloping  a 
plain  and  trite  observation  in  all  the  mock  majesty  of 
solemn  verbosity.  A  reader  of  plain  understanding,  we 
suspect,  could  hardly  recognize  the  familiar  remark,  that  15 
excessive  grief  for  our  departed  friends  is  not  very  con- 
sistent with  a  firm  belief  in  their  immortal  felicity,  in 
the  first  twenty  lines  of  the  following  passage  :  —  In  the 
succeeding  lines  we  do  not  ourselves  pretend  to  recognize 

anything.  20 

# 
*  * 

These  examples,  we  perceive,  are  not  very  well  chosen 
—  but  we  have  not  leisure  to  improve  the  selection;  and, 
such  as  they  are,  they  may  serve  to  give  the  reader  a 
notion  of  the  sort  of  merit  which  we  meant  to  illustrate  25 
by  their  citation.  When  we  look  back  to  them,  indeed, 
and  to  the  other  passages  which  we  have  now  extracted, 
we  feel  half  inclined  to  rescind  the  severe  sentence  which 
we  passed  on  the  work  at  the  beginning  :  —  But  when  we 
look  into  the  work  itself,  we  perceive  that  it  cannot  be  3° 
rescinded.  Nobody  can  be  more  disposed  to  do  justice 
to  the  great  powers  of  Mr.  Wordsworth  than  we  are  ; 
and,  from  the  first  time  that  he  came  before  us,  down 
to  the  present  moment,  we  have  uniformly  testified  in 


n6  THE    EXCURSION. 

their  favour,  and  assigned  indeed  our  high  sense  of  their 
value  as  the  chief  ground  of  the  bitterness  with  which 
we  resented  their  perversion.  That  perversion,  however, 
is  now  far  more  visible  than  their  original  dignity  ;  and 

5  while  we  collect  the  fragments,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
mourn  over  the  ruins  from  which  we  are  condemned  to 
pick  them.  If  any  one  should  doubt  of  the  existence  of 
such  a  perversion,  or  be  disposed  to  dispute  about  the 
instances  we  have  hastily  brought  forward,  we  would  just 
leave  to  refer  him  to  the  general  plan  and  character 
of  the  poem  now  before  us.  Why  should  Mr.  Wordsworth 
have  made  his  hero  a  superannuated  pedlar?  What  but 
the  most  wretched  affectation,  or  provoking  perversity  of 
taste,  could  induce  any  one  to  place  his  chosen  advocate 

15  of  wisdom  and  virtue  in  so  absurd  and  fantastic  a  con- 
dition ?  Did  Mr.  Wordsworth  really  imagine  that  his 
favorite  doctrines  were  likely  to  gain  anything  in  point 
of  effect  or  authority  by  being  put  into  the  mouth  of  a 
person  accustomed  to  higgle  about  tape  or  brass  sleeve- 

20  buttons  ?  Or  is  it  not  plain  that,  independent  of  the 
ridicule  and  disgust  which  such  a  personification  must 
excite  in  many  of  his  readers,  its  adoption  exposes  his 
work  throughout  to  the  charge  of  revolting  incongruity 
and  utter  disregard  of  probability  or  nature  ?  For,  after 

25  he  has  thus  wilfully  debased  his  moral  teacher  by  a  low 
occupation,  is  there  one  word  that  he  puts  into  his  mouth, 
or  one  sentiment  of  which  he  makes  him  the  organ,  that 
has  the  most  remote  reference  to  that  occupation  ?  Is 
there  anything  in  his  learned,  abstract  and  logical 

30  harangues  that  savours  of  the  calling  that  is  ascribed  to 
him  ?  Are  any  of  their  materials  such  as  a  pedlar  could 
possibly  have  dealt  in  ?  Are  the  manners,  the  diction, 
the  sentiments  in  any,  the  very  smallest  degree,  accom- 
modated to  a  person  in  that  condition  ?  or  are  they  not 


THE    EXCURSION.  117 

eminently  and  conspicuously  such  as  could  not  by  possi- 
bility belong  to  it  ?  A  man  who  went  about  selling 
flannel  and  pocket-handkerchiefs  in  this  lofty  diction 
would  soon  frighten  away  all  his  customers ;  and  would 
infallibly  pass  either  for  a  madman  or  for  some  learned  5 
and  affected  gentleman,  who,  in  a  frolic,  had  taken  up 
a  character  which  he  was  peculiarly  ill  qualified  for 
supporting. 

The  absurdity  in  this  case,  we  think,  is  palpable  and 
glaring  :  but  it  is  exactly  of  the  same  nature  with  that  10 
which  infects  the  whole  substance  of  the  work  —  a  puerile 
ambition  of  singularity  engrafted  on  an  unlucky  predilec- 
tion for  truisms  ;  and  an  affected  passion  for  simplicity 
and  humble  life,  most  awkwardly  combined  with  a  taste 
for  mystical   refinements,   and  all   the   gorgeousness   of  15 
obscure  phraseology,     His  taste  for  simplicity  is  evinced 
by  sprinkling  up  and  down  his  interminable  declamations 
a  few  descriptions  of  baby-houses,  and  of  old  hats  with 
wet  brims  ;  and  his  amiable  partiality  for  humble  life, 
by  assuring  us  that  a  wordy  rhetorician,  who  talks  about  20 
Thebes,  and  allegorizes  all  the  heathen  mythology,  was 
once    a   pedlar  —  and   making   him   break  in  upon   his 
magnificent  orations  with  two  or  three  awkward  notices 
of  something  that  he  had  seen  when  selling  winter  raiment 
about  the   country  —  or  of  the  changes  in  the  state  of  25 
society,  which  had  almost  annihilated  his  former  calling. 


THE  WHITE  DOE  OF  RYLSTONE, 

OR  THE  FATE  OF  THE  MORTONS. 


A  Poem.     By   William    Wordsworth,     ^to,  pp.  162.     London,  1815. 


THIS,  we  think,  has  the  merit  of  being  the  very  worst 
poem  we  ever  saw  imprinted  in  a  quarto  volume  ;  and 
though  it  was  scarcely  to  be  expected,  we  confess,  that 
Mr.  Wordsworth,  with  all  his  ambition,  should  so  soon 
5  have  attained  to  that  distinction,  the  wonder  may  perhaps 
be  diminished  when  we  state  that  it  seems  to  us  to  con- 
sist of  a  happy  union  of  all  the  faults,  without  any  of 
the  beauties,  which  belong  to  his  school  of  poetry.  It 
is  just  such  a  work,  in  short,  as  some  wicked  enemy  of 

10  that  school  might  be  supposed  to  have  devised,  on  purpose 
to  make  it  ridiculous  ;  and  when  we  first  took  it  up  we 
could  not  help  suspecting  that  some  ill-natured  critic  had 
actually  taken  this  harsh  method  of  instructing  Mr.  Words- 
worth, by  example,  in  the  nature  of  those  errors,  against 

15  which  our  precepts  had  been  so  often  directed  in  vain. 
We  had  not  gone  far,  however,  till  we  felt  intimately  that 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  joke  could  be  so  insupportably 
dull ;  —  and  that  this  must  be  the  work  of  one  who  earn- 
estly believed  it  to  be  a  pattern  of  pathetic  simplicity, 

20  and  gave  it  out  as  such  to  the  admiration  of  all  intelligent 
readers.  In  this  point  of  view  the  work  may  be  regarded 
as  curious  at  least,  if  not  in  some  degree  interesting  ; 
and,  at  all  events,  it  must  be  instructive  to  be  made 
aware  of  the  excesses  into  which  superior  understand- 

25  ings  may  be  betrayed,  by  long  self-indulgence,  and  the 


THE    WHITE  DOE   OF  RYLSTONE.  119 

strange  extravagances  into  which  they  may  run,  when 
under  the  influence  of  that  intoxication  which  is  produced 
by  unrestrained  admiration  of  themselves.  This  poetical 
intoxication,  indeed,  to  pursue  the  figure  a  little  farther, 
seems  capable  of  assuming  as  many  forms  as  the  vulgar  5 
one  which  arises  from  wine  ;  and  it  appears  to  require  as 
delicate  a  management  to  make  a  man  a  good  poet  by 
the  help  of  the  one  as  to  make  him  a  good  companion 
by  means  of  the  other.  In  both  cases,  a  little  mistake 
as  to  the  dose  or  the  quality  of  the  inspiring  fluid  may  10 
make  him  absolutely  outrageous,  or  lull  him  over  into 
the  most  profound  stupidity,  instead  of  brightening  up 
the  hidden  stores  of  his  genius  :  and  truly  we  are  con- 
cerned to  say  that  Mr.  Wordsworth  seems  hitherto  to 
have  been  unlucky  in  the  choice  of  his  liquor  —  or  of  15 
his  bottle-holder.  In  some  of  his  odes  and  ethic  exhor- 
tations he  was  exposed  to  the  public  in  a  state  of  inco- 
herent rapture  and  glorious  delirium,  to  which  we  think 
we  have  seen  a  parallel  among  the  humbler  lovers  of 
jollity.  In  the  Lyrical  Ballads  he  was  exhibited,  on  the  20 
whole,  in  a  vein  of  very  pretty  deliration ;  but  in  the 
poem  before  us  he  appears  in  a  state  of  low  and  maudlin 
imbecility,  which  would  not  have  misbecome  Master 
Silence  himself,  in  the  close  of  a  social  day.  Whether 
this  unhappy  result  is  to  be  ascribed  to  any  adulteration  25 
of  his  Castalian  cups,  or  to  the  unlucky  choice  of  his 
company  over  them,  we  cannot  presume  to  say.  It  may 
be  that  he  has  dashed  his  Hippocrene  with  too  large 
an  infusion  of  lake  water,  or  assisted  its  operation  too 
exclusively  by  the  study  of  the  ancient  historical  ballads  3° 
of  "  the  north  countrie."  That  there  are  palpable  imita- 
tions of  the  style  and  manner  of  those  venerable  compo- 
sitions in  the  work  before  us  is  indeed  undeniable ; 
but  it  unfortunately  happens  that  while  the  hobbling 


120  THE    WHITE  DOE   OF  RYLSTONE. 

versification,  the  mean  diction  and  flat  stupidity  of  these 
models  are  very  exactly  copied,  and  even  improved  upon, 
in  this  imitation,  their  rude  energy,  manly  simplicity,  and 
occasional  felicity  of  expression  have  totally  disappeared; 
5  and,  instead  of  them,  a  large  allowance  of  the  author's 
own  metaphysical  sensibility,  and  mystical  wordiness  is 
forced  into  an  unnatural  combination  with  the  borrowed 
beauties  which  have  just  been  mentioned. 


TALES  OF  FASHIONABLE  LIFE. 


By  Miss  Edge-worth,  Author  of  "Practical  Education"  "Belinda" 
"  Castle  Rackrent"  etc.     izmo.    j  vols.     London,  1809. 


IF  it  were  possible  for  reviewers  to  Envy  the  authors 
who  are  brought  before  them  for  judgment,  we  rather 
think  we  should  be  tempted  to  envy  Miss  Edgeworth  ;  — 
not,    however,    so   much   for   her   matchless   powers    of 
probable   invention  —  her  never-failing  good  sense  and    5 
cheerfulness  —  nor  her  fine  discrimination  of  characters 
—  as  for  the    delightful    consciousness  of  having  done 
more  good  than  any  other  writer,  male  or  female,  of  her 
generation.     Other  arts  and  sciences  have  their  use,  no 
doubt ;  and,  Heaven  knows,  they  have  their  reward  and  I0 
their  fame.     But  the  great  art  is  the  art  of  living  ;  and 
the  chief  science  the  science  of  being  happy.     Where 
there    is    an    absolute    deficiency  of   good   sense,   these 
cannot   indeed  be  taught ;    and,   with   an   extraordinary 
share  of  it,  they  may  be  acquired  without  an  instructor  :  jj 
but  the  most  common  case  is,  to  be  capable  of  learning, 
and  yet  to  require  teaching  ;  and  a  far  greater  part  of 
the  misery  which  exists  in  society  arises  from  ignorance,  • 
than  either  from  vice  or  from  incapacity. 

Miss  Edgeworth  is  the  great  modern  mistress  in  this  20 
school  of  true  philosophy  ;  and  has  eclipsed,  we  think, 
the  fame  of  all  her  predecessors.     By  her  many  excellent 
tracts  on  education,  she  has  conferred  a  benefit  on  the 
whole    mass  of  the    population  ;    and   discharged,   with 
exemplary  patience  as  well  as  extraordinary  judgment,  a  25 
task  which  superficial  spirits  may  perhaps  mistake  for  an 


122  TALES  OF  FASHIONABLE  LIFE. 

humble  and  easy  one.  By  her  Popular  Tales,  she  has 
rendered  an  invaluable  service  to  the  middling  and  lower 
orders  of  the  people  ;  and  by  her  Novels,  and  by  the 
volumes  before  us,  has  made  a  great  and  meritorious 
5  effort  to  promote  the  happiness  and  respectability  of  the 
higher  classes.  On  a  former  occasion  we  believe  we 
hinted  to  her,  that  these  would  probably  be  the  least 
successful  of  all  her  labours  ;  and  that  it  was  doubtful 
whether  she  could  be  justified  for  bestowing  so  much  of 

10  her  time  on  the  case  of  a  few  persons,  who  scarcely 
deserved  to  be  cured,  and  were  scarcely  capable  of  being 
corrected.  The  foolish  and  unhappy  part  of  the  fashion- 
able world,  for  the  most  part,  "is  not  fit  to  hear  itself 
convinced."  It  is  too  vain,  too  busy,  and  too  dissipated 

15  to  listen  to,  or  remember  any  thing  that  is  said  to  it. 
Every  thing  serious  it  repels,  by  "  its  dear  wit  and  gay 
rhetoric";  and  against  every  thing  poignant,  it  seeks 
shelter  in  the  impenetrable  armour  of  its  conjunct  au- 
dacity. 

20  "  Laugh'd  at,  it  laughs  again  ;  —  and,  stricken  hard, 

Turns  to  the  stroke  its  adamantine  scales, 
That  fear  no  discipline  of  human  hands." 

A  book,  on  the  other  hand,  and  especially  a  witty  and 
popular  book,  is  still  a  thing  of  consequence,  to  such  of 

25  the  middling  classes  of  society  as  are  in  the  habit  of 
reading.  They  dispute  about  it,  and  think  of  it  ;  and  as 
they  occasionally  make  themselves  ridiculous  by  copying 
the  manners  it  displays,  so  they  are  apt  to  be  impressed 
with  the  great  lessons  it  may  be  calculated  to  teach  ; 

30  and,  on  the  whole,  receive  it  into  considerable  authority 
among  the  regulators  of  their  lives  and  opinions.  —  But  a 
fashionable  person  has  scarcely  any  leisure  to  read  ;  and 
none  to  think  of  what  he  has  been  reading.  It  would  be 
a  derogation  from  his  dignity  to  speak  of  a  book  in  any 


TALES  OF  FASHIONABLE  LIFE.  123 

terms  but  those  of  frivolous  derision  ;  and  a  strange 
desertion  of  his  own  superiority,  to  allow  himself  to 
receive,  from  its  perusal,  any  impressions  which  could  at 
all  affect  his  conduct  or  opinions. 

But  though,  for  these  reasons,  we  continue  to  think    5 
that  Miss  Edgeworth's  fashionable  patients  will  do  less 
credit   to    her   prescriptions    than    the    more    numerous 
classes  to  whom  they  might  have  been  directed,  we  admit 
that    her   plan   of   treatment   is   in   the    highest   degree 
judicious,    and    her    conception    of    the    disorder    most  10 
luminous  and  precise. 

There  are  two  great  sources  of  unhappiness  to  those 
whom  fortune  and  nature  seem  to  have  placed  above  the 
reach  of  ordinary  miseries.  The  one  is  ennui — that 
stagnation  of  life  and  feeling  which  results  from  the  15 
absence  of  all  motives  to  exertion  ;  and  by  which  the 
justice  of  providence  has  so  fully  compensated  the 
partiality  of  fortune,  that  it  may  be  fairly  doubted 
whether,  upon  the  whole,  the  race  of  beggars  is  not 
happier  than  the  race  of  lords  ;  and  whether  those  vulgar  20 
wants  that  are  sometimes  so  importunate,  are  not,  in  this 
world,  the  chief  ministers  of  enjoyment.  This  is  a  plague 
that  infects  all  indolent  persons  who  can  live  on  in  the 
rank  in  which  they  were  born,  without  the  necessity  of 
working  :  but,  in  a  free  country,  it  rarely  occurs  in  any  25 
great  degree  of  virulence,  except  among  those  who  are 
already  at  the  summit  of  human  felicity.  Below  this, 
there  is  room  for  ambition,  and  envy,  and  emulation, 
and  all  the  feverish  movements  of  aspiring  vanity  and 
unresting  selfishness,  which  act  as  prophylactics  against  3° 
this  more  dark  and  deadly  distemper.  It  is  the  canker 
which  corrodes  the  full-blown  flower  of  human  felicity  — 
the  pestilence  which  smites  at  the  bright  hour  of 
noon. 


124  TALES  OF  FASHIONABLE  LIFE. 

The  other  curse  of  the  happy,  has  a  range  more  wide 
and  indiscriminate.  It,  too,  tortures  only  the  compara- 
tively rich  and  fortunate  ;  but  is  most  active  "among  the 
least  distinguished  ;  and  abates  in  malignity  as  we  ascend 
5  to  the  lofty  regions  of  pure  enmii.  This  is  the  desire  of 
being  fashionable  ;  —  the  restless  and  insatiable  passion 
to  pass  for  creatures  a  little  more  distinguished  than  we 
really  are  —  with  the  mortification  of  frequent  failure, 
and  the  humiliating  consciousness  of  being  perpetually 

10  exposed  to  it.  Among  those  who  are  secure  of  "  meat, 
clothes,  and  fire,"  and  are  thus  above  the  chief  physical 
evils  of  existence,  we  do  believe  that  this  is  a  more 
prolific  source  of  unhappiness,  than  guilt,  disease,  or 
wounded  affection  ;  and  that  more  positive  misery  is 

15  created,  and  more  true  enjoyment  excluded,  by  the 
eternal  fretting  and  straining  of  this  pitiful  ambition,  than 
by  all  the  ravages  of  passion,  the  desolations  of  war,  or 
the  accidents  of  mortality.  This  may  appear  a  strong 
statement  ;  but  we  make  it  deliberately,  and  are  deeply 

20  convinced  of  its  truth.  The  wretchedness  which  it  pro- 
duces may  not  be  so  intense  ;  but  it  is  of  much  longer 
duration,  and  spreads  over  a  far  wider  circle.  It  is  quite 
dreadful,  indeed,  to  think  what  a  sweep  this  pest  has 
taken  among  the  comforts  of  our  prosperous  population. 

25  To  be  thought  fashionable  —  that  is,  to  be  thought 
more  opulent  and  tasteful,  and  on  a  footing  of  intimacy 
with  a  greater  number  of  distinguished  persons  than 
they  really  are,  is  the  great  and  laborious  pursuit  of 
four  families  out  of  five,  the  members  of  which  are 

30  exempted  from  the  necessity  of  daily  industry.  In  this 
pursuit,  their  time,  spirits,  and  talents  are  wasted  ;  their 
tempers,  soured  ;  their  affections  palsied ;  and  their 
natural  manners  and  dispositions  altogether  sophisticated 
and  lost. 


TALES  OF  FASHIONABLE   LIFE.  I*£ 

These  are  the  giant  curses  of  fashionable  life,  and 
Miss  Edgeworth  has  accordingly  dedicated  her  two  best 
tales  to  the  delineation  of  their  symptoms.  The  history 
of  "  Lord  Glenthorn  "  is  a  fine  picture  of  ennui — that  of 
"  Almeria  "  an  instructive  representation  of  the  miseries  5 
of  aspirations  after  fashion.  We  do  not  know  whether  it 
was  a  part  of  the  fair  writer's  design  to  represent  these 
maladies  as  absolutely  incurable,  without  a  change  of 
condition  ;  but  the  fact  is,  that  in  spite  of  the  best  dis- 
positions and  capacities,  and  the  most  powerful  induce-  10 
ments  to  action,  the  hero  of  ennui  makes  no  advances 
towards  amendment,  till  he  is  deprived  of  his  title  and 
estate  !  and  the  victim  of  fashion  is  left,  at  the  end  of 
the  tale,  pursuing  her  weary  career,  with  fading  hopes 
and  wasted  spirits,  but  with  increased  anxiety  and  per-  15 
severance.  The  moral  use  of  these  narratives,  therefore, 
must  consist  in  warning  us  against  the  first  approaches  of 
evils  which  can  never  afterwards  be  resisted. 


WAVERLEY,  OR  'TIS  SIXTY  YEARS  SINCE. 


In  three  volumes  i2mo,  pp.  1112.     Third  edition.    Edinburgh,  1814.* 


IT  is  wonderful  what  genius  and  adherence  to  nature 
will  do,  in  spite  of  all  disadvantages.  Here  is  a  thing 
obviously  very  hastily,  and,  in  many  places,  somewhat 
unskilfully  written  —  composed,  one  half  of  it,  in  a 
5  dialect  unintelligible  to  four-fifths  of  the  reading  popula- 
tion of  the  country  —  relating  to  a  period  too  recent  to 

*  I  have  been  a  good  deal  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with  these  famous 
novels  of  Sir  Walter.  On  the  one  hand,  I  could  not  bring  myself 
to  let  this  collection  go  forth,  without  some  notice  of  works  which, 
for  many  years  together,  had  occupied  and  delighted  me  more  than 
anything  else  that  ever  came  under  my  critical  survey :  While,  on 
the  other,  I  coulcl  not  but  feel  that  it  would  be  absurd,  and  in  some 
sense  almost  dishonest,  to  fill  these  pages  with  long  citations  from 
books  which,  for  the  last  twenty-five  years,  have  been  in  the  hands 
of  at  least  fifty  times  as  many  readers  as  are  ever  likely  to  look  into 
this  publication  —  and  are  still  as  familiar  to  the  generation  which 
has  last  come  into  existence,  as  to  those  who  can  yet  remember  the 
sensation  produced  by  their  first  appearance.  In  point  of  fact  I  was 
informed,  but  the  other  day,  by  Mr.  Cadell,  that  he  had  actually 
sold  not  less  than  sixty  thousand  volumes  of  these  extraordinary 
productions,  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  year  !  and  that  the 
demand  for  them,  instead  of  slackening  —  had  been  for  some  time 
sensibly  on  the  increase.  In  these  circumstances  I  think  I  may 
safely  assume  that  their  contents  are  still  so  perfectly  known  as  not 
to  require  any  citations  to  introduce  such  of  the  remarks  originally 
made  on  them  as  I  may  now  wish  to  repeat.  And  I  have  therefore 
come  to  the  determination  of  omitting  almost  all  the  quotations, 
and  most  of  the  detailed  abstracts  which  appeared  in  the  original 


WAVERLEY,  OR  'TIS  SIXTY  YEARS  SINCE.      12 7 

be  romantic,  and  too  far  gone  by  to  be  familiar  —  and 
published,  moreover,  in  a  quarter  of  the  island  where 
materials  and  talents  for  novel-writing  have  been  sup- 
posed to  be  equally  wanting :  And  yet,  by  the  mere  force 
and  truth  and  vivacity  of  its  colouring,  already  casting  5 
the  whole  tribe  of  ordinary  novels  into  the  shade,  and 
taking  its  place  rather  with  the  most  popular  of  our 
modern  poems,  than  with  the  rubbish  of  provincial 
romances. 

The  secret  of  this  success,  we  take  it,  is  merely  that  10 
the  author  is  a  man  of  Genius ;  and  that  he  has,  notwith- 
standing, had  virtue  enough  to  be  true  to  Nature  through- 
out ;  and  to  content  himself,  even  in  the  marvellous  parts 
of  his  story,  with  copying  from  actual  existences,  rather 
than  from  the  phantasms  of  his  own  imagination.     The  15 
charm  which  this  communicates  to  all  works  that  deal  in 

reviews  ;  and  to  retain  only  the  general  criticism,  and  character,  or 
estimate  of  each  performance  —  together  with  such  incidental  obser- 
vations as  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  tenor  or  success  of  these 
wonderful  productions.  By  this  course,  no  doubt,  a  sad  shrinking 
will  be  effected  in  the  primitive  dimensions  of  the  articles  which  are 
here  reproduced  ;  and  may  probably  give  to  what  is  retained  some- 
thing of  a  naked  and  jejune  appearance.  If  it  should  be  so,  I  can 
only  say  that  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  have  helped  it :  and  after  all 
it  may  not  be  altogether  without  interest  to  see,  from  a  contem- 
porary record,  what  were  the  first  impressions  produced  by  the 
appearance  of  this  new  luminary  on  our  horizon  ;  while  the  secret 
of  the  authorship  was  yet  undivulged,  and  before  the  rapid  accumu- 
lation of  its  glories  had  forced  on  the  dullest  spectator  a  sense  of  its 
magnitude  and  power.  I  may  venture  perhaps  also  to  add,  that 
some  of  the  general  speculations  of  which  these  reviews  suggested 
the  occasion,  may  probably  be  found  as  well  worth  preserving  as 
most  of  those  which  have  been  elsewhere  embodied  in  this  experi- 
mental, and  somewhat  hazardous,  publication. 

Though  living  in  familiar  intercourse  with  Sir  Walter,  I  need 
scarcely  say  that  I  was  not  in  the  secret  of  his  authorship ;  and  in 
truth  had  no  assurance  of  the  fact,  till  the  time  of  its  promulgation. 


128      WAVERLEY,  OR  'TIS  SIXTY  YEARS  SINCE. 

the  representation  of  human  actions  and  character,  is 
more  readily  felt  than  understood  ;  and  operates  with 
unfailing  efficacy  even  upon  those  who  have  no  acquaint- 
ance with  the  originals  from  which  the  picture  has  been 
5  borrowed.  It  requires  no  ordinary  talent,  indeed,  to 
choose  such  realities  as  may  outshine  the  bright  imagina- 
tions of  the  inventive,  and  so  to  combine  them  as  to 
produce  the  most  advantageous  effect ;  but  when  this  is 
once  accomplished,  the  result  is  sure  to  be  something 

10  more  firm,  impressive,  and  engaging,  than  can  ever  be 
produced  by  mere  fiction. 

The  object  of  the  work  before  us,  was  evidently  to 
present  a  faithful  and  animated  picture  of  the  manners 
and  state  of  society  that  prevailed  in  this  northern  part 

15  of  the  island,  in  the  earlier  part  of  last  century;  and  the 
author  has  judiciously  fixed  upon  the  era  of  the  Rebellion 
in  1745,  not  only  as  enriching  his  pages  with  the  interest 
inseparably  attached  to  the  narration  of  such  occurrences, 
but  as  affording  a  fair  opportunity  for  bringing  out  all  the 

20  contrasted  principles  and  habits  which  distinguished  the 
different  classes  of  persons  who  then  divided  the  country, 
and  formed  among  them  the  basis  of  almost  all  that  was 
peculiar  in  the  national  character.  That  unfortunate 
contention  brought  conspicuously  to  light,  and,  for  the 

25  last  time,  the  fading  image  of  feudal  chivalry  in  the 
mountains,  and  vulgar  fanaticism  in  the  plains ;  and 
startled  the  more  polished  parts  of  the  land  with  the  wild 
but  brilliant  picture  of  the  devoted  valour,  incorruptible 
fidelity,  patriarchal  brotherhood,  and  savage  habits  of  the 

3°  Celtic  Clans,  on  the  one  hand,  —  and  the  dark,  intract- 
able, and  domineering  bigotry  of  the  Covenanters  on  the 
other.  Both  aspects  of  society  had  indeed  been  formerly 
prevalent  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  —  but  had  there 
been  so  long  superseded  by  more  peaceable  habits,  and 


WAVERLEY,  OR  TSS  SIXTY  YEARS  SINCE.     129 

milder  manners,  that  fheir  vestiges  were  almost  effaced, 
and  their  very  memory  nearly  extinguished.  The  feudal 
principalities  had  been  destroyed  in  the  South,  for  near 
three  hundred  years,  —  and  the  dominion  of  the  Puritans 
from  the  time  of  the  Restoration.  When  the  glens,  and  5 
banded  clans,  of  the  central  Highlands,  therefore,  were 
opened  up  to  the  gaze  of  the  English,  in  the  course  of 
that  insurrection,  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  carried  back 
to  the  days  of  the  Heptarchy ;  —  and  when  they  saw  the 
array  of  the  West  country  Whigs,  they  might  imagine  10 
themselves  transported  to  the  age  of  Cromwell.  The 
effect,  indeed,  is  almost  as  startling  at  the  present  mo- 
ment; and  one  great  source  of  the  interest  which  the 
volumes  before  us  undoubtedly  possess,  is  to  be  sought 
in  the  surprise  that  is  excited  by  discovering,  that  in  our  15 
own  country,  and  almost  in  our  own  age,  manners  and 
characters  existed,  and  were  conspicuous,  which  we  had 
been  accustomed  to  consider  as  belonging  to  remote 
antiquity,  or  extravagant  romance. 

The  way  in  which   they  are  here  represented   must  20 
satisfy  every  reader,   we  think,  by  an  inward   tact  and 
conviction,   that  the   delineation    has   been   made   from 
actual    experience    and    observation  ;  —  experience    and 
observation  employed  perhaps  only  on  a  few  surviving 
relics  and  specimens  of  what  was  familiar  a  little  earlier  25 
—  but  generalised  from  instances  sufficiently  numerous 
and  complete,  to  warrant  all  that  may  have  been  added 
to  the  portrait :  —  And,  indeed,  the  existing  records  and 
vestiges  of  the  more  extraordinary  parts  of  the  represen- 
tation are  still  sufficiently  abundant,  to   satisfy  all  who  30 
have  the  means  of  consulting  them,  as  to  the  perfect 
accuracy  of  the  picture.     The  great  traits  of  Clannish 
dependence,  pride,  and  fidelity,  may  still  be  detected  in 
many  districts  of  the  Highlands,  though  they  do  not  now 


13°      WAVERLEY,  OR  'TIS  SIXTY  YEARS  SINCE. 

adhere  to  the  chieftains  when  they  mingle  in  general 
society ;  and  the  existing  contentions  of  Burghers  and 
Antiburghers,  and  Cameronians,  though  shrunk  into  com- 
parative insignificance,  and  left,  indeed,  without  protec- 

5  tion  to  the  ridicule  of  the  profane,  may  still  be  referred 
to,  as  complete  verifications  of  all  that  is  here  stated 
about  Gifted  Gilfillan,  or  Ebenezer  Cruickshank.  The 
traits  of  Scottish  national  character  in  the  lower  ranks, 
can  still  less  be  regarded  as  antiquated  or  traditional ; 

10  nor  is  there  any  thing  in  the  whole  compass  of  the  work 
which  gives  us  a  stronger  impression  of  the  nice  observa- 
tion and  graphical  talent  of  the  author,  than  the  extra- 
ordinary fidelity  and  felicity  with  which  all  the  inferior 
agents  in  the  story  are  represented.  No  one  who  has  not 

15  lived  extensively  among  the  lower  orders  of  all  descrip- 
tions, and  made  himself  familiar  with  their  various  tem- 
pers and  dialects,  can  perceive  the  full  merit  of  those 
rapid  and  characteristic  sketches  ;  but  it  requires  only  a 
general  knowledge  of  human  nature,  to  feel  that  they 

20  must  be  faithful  copies  from  known  originals ;  and  to  be 
aware  of  the  extraordinary  facility  and  flexibility  of  hand 
which  has  touched,  for  instance,  with  such  discriminating 
shades,  the  various  gradations  of  the  Celtic  character, 
from  the  savage  imperturbability  of  Dugald  Mahony,  who 

25  stalks  grimly  about  with  his  battle-axe  on  his  shoulder, 
without  speaking  a  word  to  any  one,  —  to  the  lively  un- 
principled activity  of  Callum  Beg,  —  the  coarse  unreflect- 
ing hardihood  and  heroism  of  Evan  Maccombich,  —  and 
the  pride,  gallantry,  elegance,  and  ambition  of  Fergus 

30  himself.  In  the  lower  class  of  the  Lowland  characters, 
again,  the  vulgarity  of  Mrs.  Flockhart  and  of  Lieutenant 
Jinker  is  perfectly  distinct  and  original ;  —  as  well  as  the 
puritanism  of  Gilfillan  and  Cruickshank  —  the  atrocity  of 
Mrs.  Mucklewrath — and  the  slow  solemnity  of  Alexander 


WAVER  LEY,  OR  'TIS  SIXTY  YEARS  SI  ATE.      131 

Saunderson.  The  Baron  of  Bradwardine,  and  Baillie 
Macwheeble,  are  caricatures  no  doubt,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  caricatures  in  the  novels  of  Smollett, —  or  pictures, 
at  the  best,  of  individuals  who  must  always  have  been 
unique  and  extraordinary  :  but  almost  all  the  other  per-  5 
sonages  in  the  history  are  fair  representatives  of  classes 
that  are  still  existing,  or  may  be  remembered  at  least  to 
have  existed,  by  many  whose  recollections  do  not  extend 
quite  so  far  back  as  to  the  year  1745. 

*       *       *  I0 

There  has  been   much    speculation,  at   least   in   this 

quarter  of  the  island,  about  the  authorship  of  this  singular 
performance  —  and  certainly  it  is  not  easy  to  conjecture 
why  it  is  still  anonymous.  —  Judging  by  internal  evidence, 
to  which  alone  we  pretend  to  have  access,  we  should  not  15 
scruple  to  ascribe  it  to  the  highest  of  those  authors  to 
whom  it  has  been  assigned  by  the  sagacious  conjectures 
of  the  public  ;  —  and  this  at  least  we  will  venture  to 
say  that  if  it  be  indeed  the  work  of  an  author  hitherto 
unknown,  Mr.  Scott  would  do  well  to  look  to  his  laurels,  20 
and  to  rouse  himself  for  a  sturdier  competition  than  any 
he  has  yet  had  to  encounter ! 


-jL<^st**^~**-'T" 


c,<-*x- 

TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD. 


Collected  and  arranged  by  Jedediah  Cleishbotham,  Schoolmaster  and 
Parish  Clerk  of  the  Parish  of  Gandercleugh.  4  vols.  i2mo. 
Edinburgh,  1816. 

THIS,  we  think,  is  beyond  all  question  a  new  coinage 
from  the  mint  which  produced  Waverley,  Guy  Manner- 
ing,  and  the  Antiquary  :  —  For  though  it  does  not  bear 
'  the  legend  and  superscription  of  the  Master  on  the  face 

5  of  the  pieces,  there  is  no  mistaking  either  the  quality  of 
the  metal  or  the  execution  of  the  die  —  and  even  the 
private  mark,  we  doubt  not,  may  be  seen  plain  enough, 
by  those  who  know  how  to  look  for  it.  It  is  quite 
impossible  to  read  ten  pages  of  this  work,  in  short, 

10  without  feeling  that  it  belongs  to  the  same  school  with 
those  very  remarkable  productions  ;  and  no  one  who  has 
any  knowledge  of  nature,  or  of  art,  will  ever  doubt  that  it 
is  an  original.  The  very  identity  of  the  leading  char- 
acters in  the  whole  set  of  stories,  is  a  stronger  proof, 

15  perhaps,  that  those  of  the  last  series  are  not  copied  from 
the  former,  than  even  the  freshness  and  freedom  of  the 
draperies  with  which  they  are  now  invested  —  or  the  ease 
and  spirit  of  the  new  groups  into  which  they  are  here 
combined.  No  imitator  would  have  ventured  so  near  his 

20  originals,  and  yet  come  off  so  entirely  clear  of  them  : 
And  we  are  only  the  more  assured  that  the  old  acquaint- 
ances we  continually  recognise  in  these  volumes,  are 
really  the  persons  they  pretend  to  be,  and  no  false 
mimics,  that  we  recollect  so  perfectly  to  have  seen  them 


TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD.  133 

before,  —  or  at  least  to  have  been  familiar  with  some  of 
their  near  relations  ! 

We  have  often  been  astonished  at  the  quantity  of 
talent — of  invention,  observation,  and  knowledge  of  char- 
acter, as  well  as  of  spirited  and  graceful  composition,  5 
that  may  be  found  in  those  works  of  fiction  in  our  lan- 
guage, which  are  generally  regarded  as  among  the  lower 
productions  of  our  literature,  —  upon  which  no  great 
pains  is  understood  to  be  bestowed,  and  which  are 
seldom  regarded  as  titles  to  a  permanent  reputation.  If  10 
Novels,  however,  are  not  fated  to  last  as  long  as  Epic 
poems,  they  are  at  least  a  great  deal  more  popular  in 
their  season  ;  and,  slight  as  their  structure,  and  imperfect 
as  their  finishing  may  often  be  thought  in  comparison,  we 
have  no.  hesitation  in  saying,  that  the  better  specimens  of  15 
the  art  are  incomparably  more  entertaining,  and  consider- 
ably more  instructive.  The  great  objection  to  them, 
indeed,  is,  that  they  are  too  entertaining  —  and  are  so 
pleasant  in  the  reading,  as  to  be  apt  to  produce  a  disrelish 
for  other  kinds  of  reading,  which  may  be  more  necessary,  20 
and  can  in  no  way  be  made  so  agreeable.  Neither 
science,  nor  authentic  history,  nor  political  nor  pro- 
fessional instruction,  can  be  rightly  conveyed,  we  fear,  in 
a  pleasant  tale  ;  and  therefore,  all  those  things  are  in 
danger  of  appearing  dull  and  uninteresting  to  the  votaries  25 
of  these  more  seductive  studies.  Among  the  most  popular 
of  these  popular  productions  that  have  appeared  in  our 
times,  we  must  rank  the  works  to  which  we  just  alluded  ; 
and  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  they  are  well  entitled 
to  that  distinction.  They  are  indeed,  in  many  respects,  3° 
very  extraordinary  performances  —  though  in  nothing 
more  extraordinary  than  in  having  remained  so  long 
unclaimed.  There  is  no  name,  we  think,  in  our  litera- 
ture, to  which  they  would  not  add  lustre  —  and  lustre, 


134  TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

too,  of  a  very  enviable  kind  ;  for  they  not  only  show  great 
talent,  but  infinite  good  sense  and  good  nature,  —  a  more 
vigorous  and  wide-reaching  intellect  than  is  often  dis- 
played in  novels,  and  a  more  powerful  fancy,  and  a 
5  deeper  sympathy  with  various  passion,  than  is  often  com- 
bined with  such  strength  of  understanding. 

The  author,  whoever  he  is,  has  a  truly  graphic  and 
creative  power  in  the  invention  and  delineation  of  char- 
acters—  which  he  sketches  with  an  ease,  and  colours 

10  with  a  brilliancy,  and  scatters  about  with  a  profusion, 
which  reminds  us  of  Shakespeare  himself  :  Yet  with  all 
this  force  and  felicity  in  the  representation  of  living 
agents,  he  has  the  eye  of  a  poet  for  all  the  striking  aspects 
external  of  nature  ;  and  usually  contrives,  both  in  his 

15  scenery  and  in  the  groups  with  which  it  is  enlivened,  to 
combine  the  picturesque  with  the  natural,  with  a  grace 
that  has  rarely  been  attained  by  artists  so  copious  and 
rapid.  His  narrative,  in  this  way,  is  kept  constantly  full 
of  life,  variety,  and  colour  ;  and  is  so  interspersed  with 

20  glowing  descriptions,  and  lively  allusions,  and  flying 
traits  of  sagacity  and  pathos,  as  not  only  to  keep  our 
attention  continually  awake,  but  to  afford  a  pleasing  exer- 
cise to  most  of  our  other  faculties.  The  prevailing  tone 
is  very  gay  and  pleasant ;  but  the  author's  most  remark- 

25  able,  and,  perhaps,  his  most  delightful  talent,  is  that  of 
representing  kindness  of  heart  in  union  with  lightness  of 
spirits  and  great  simplicity  of  character,  and  of  blending 
the  expression  of  warm  and  generous  and  exalted  affec- 
tions with  scenes  and  persons  that  are  in  themselves  both 

30  lowly  and  ludicrous.  This  gift  he  shares  with  his  illus- 
trious countryman  Burns  —  as  he  does  many  of  the  other 
qualities  we  have  mentioned  with  another  living  poet,— 
who  is  only  inferior  perhaps  in  that  to  which  we  have  last 
alluded.  It  is  very  honorable  indeed,  we  think,  both  to 


TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD.  135 

the  author,  and  to  the  readers  among  whom  he  is  so 
extremely  popular,  that  the  great  interest  of  his  pieces  is 
for  the  most  part  a  Moral  interest  —  that  the  concern  we 
take  in  his  favourite  characters  is  less  on  account  of  their 
adventures  than  of  their  amiableness  —  and  that  the  great  5 
charm  of  his  works  is  derived  from  the  kindness  of  heart, 
the  capacity  of  generous  emotions,  and  the  lights  of 
native  taste  which  he  ascribes,  so  lavishly,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  such  an  air  of  truth  and  familiarity,  even 
to  the  humblest  of  these  favourites.  With  all  his  relish  10 
for  the  ridiculous,  accordingly,  there  is  no  tone  of  misan- 
thropy, or  even  of  sarcasm,  in  his  representations  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  a  great  indulgence  and  relenting  even 
towards  those  who  are  to  be  the  objects  of  our  disappro- 
bation. There  is  no  keen  or  cold-blooded  satire  —  no  15 
bitterness  of  heart,  or  fierceness  of  resentment,  in  any 
part  of  his  writings.  His  love  of  ridicule  is  little  else 
than  a  love  of  mirth  ;  and  savours  throughout  of  the 
joyous  temperament  in  which  it  appears  to  have  its 
origin  ;  while  the  bujoyancy  of  a  raised  and  poetical  20 
imagination  lifts  him  continually  above  the  region  of 
mere  jollity  and  good  humour,  to  which  a  taste,  by  no 
means  nice  or  fastidious,  might  otherwise  be  in  danger  of 
sinking  him.  He  is  evidently  a  person  of  a  very  sociable 
and  liberal  spirit  —  with  great  habits  of  observation —  25 
who  has  ranged  pretty  extensively  through  the  varieties 
of  human  life  and  character,  and  mingled  with  them  all, 
not  only  with  intelligent  familiarity,  but  with  a  free  and 
natural  sympathy  for  all  the  diversities  of  their  tastes, 
pleasures,  and  pursuits  —  one  who  has  kept  his  heart  as  3° 
well  as  his  eyes  open  to  all  that  has  offered  itself  to 
engage  them  ;  and  learned  indulgence  for  human  faults 
and  follies,  not  only  from  finding  kindred  faults  in  their 
most  intolerant  censors,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  the 


I36  TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

virtues  by  which  they  are  often  redeemed,  and  the  suffer- 
ings by  which  they  have  still  oftener  been  chastised. 
The  temper  of  his  writings,  in  short,  is  precisely  the 
reverse  of  those  of  our  Laureates  and  Lakers,  who,  being 
5  themselves  the  most  whimsical  of  mortals,  make  it  a  con- 
science to  loathe  and  abhor  all  with  whom  they  happen 
to  disagree  ;  and  labour  to  promote  mutual  animosity 
and  all  manner  of  uncharitableness  among  mankind,  by 
referring  every  supposed  error  of  taste,  or  peculiarity  of 

10  opinion,  to  some  hateful  corruption  of  the  heart  and 
understanding. 

With  all  the  indulgence,  however,  which  we  so  justly 
ascribe  to  him,  we  are  far  from  complaining  of  the  writer 
before  us  for  being  too  neutral  and  undecided  on  the 

15  great  subjects  which  are  most  apt  to  engender  excessive 
zeal  and  intolerance  —  and  we  are  almost  as  far  from 
agreeing  with  him  as  to  most  of  those  subjects.  In 
politics  it  is  sufficiently  manifest,  that  he  is  a  decided 
Tory  — and,  we  are  afraid,  something  of  a  latitudinarian 

20  both  in  morals  and  religion.  He,  is  very  apt  at  least  to 
make  a  mock  of  all  enthusiasm  for  liberty  or  faith  —  and 
not  only  gives  a  decided  preference  to  the  social  over  the 
austerer  virtues  —  but  seldom  expresses  any  warm  or 
hearty  admiration,  except  for  those  graceful  and  gentle- 

25  man-like  principles,  which  can  generally  be  acted  upon 
with  a  gay  countenance  —  and  do  not  imply  any  great 
effort  of  self-denial,  or  any  deep  sense  of  the  rights  of 
others,  or  the  helplessness  and  humility  of  our  common 
nature.  Unless  we  misconstrue  very  grossly  the  indica- 

30  tions  in  these  volumes,  the  author  thinks  no  times  so 
happy  as  those  in  which  an  indulgent  monarch  awards  a 
reasonable  portion  of  liberty  to  grateful  subjects,  who  do 
not  call  in  question  his  right  either  to  give  or  to  withhold 
it  —  in  which  a  dignified  and  decent  hierarchy  receives 


TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD.  137 

the  homage  of  their  submissive  and  uninquiring  flocks  — 
and  a  gallant   nobility  redeems  the  venial   immoralities 
of  their  gayer  hours,  by  brave  and  honourable  conduct 
towards  each  other,  and  spontaneous  kindness  to  vassals, 
in  whom  they  recognise  no  independent  rights,  and  not    5 
many  features  of  a  common  nature. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  however,  that,  with  propensities 
thus   decidedly  aristocratical,  the   ingenious   author  has 
succeeded  by  far  the  best  in  the  representation  of  rustic 
and  homely  characters  ;  and  not  in  the  ludicrous  or  con-  10 
temptuous  representation  of  them  —  but  by  making  them 
at  once  more  natural  and  more  interesting  than  they  had 
ever  been  made  before  in  any  work  of  fiction  ;  by  showing 
them,  not  as  clowns  to  be  laughed  at — or  wretches,  to  be 
pitied  and  despised — but  as  human  creatures,  with  as  15 
many  pleasures  and  fewer  cares  than  their  superiors  — • 
with  affections  not  only  as  strong,  but  often  as  delicate 
as  those  whose  language  is  smoother  —  and  with  a  vein 
of  humour,  a  force  of  sagacity,  and  very  frequently  an 
elevation  of  fancy,  as  high  and  as  natural  as  can  be  met  20 
with  among  more  cultivated  beings.     The  great  merit  of 
all  these  delineations,  is  their  admirable  truth  and  fidelity 
—  the  whole  manner  and   cast  of  the  characters  being 
accurately  moulded  on   their  condition  —  and  the  finer 
attributes   that    are    ascribed   to   them    so  blended  and  25 
harmonised  with  the  native  rudeness   and  simplicity  of 
their  life  and  occupations,  that  they  are  made  interesting 
and    even    noble   beings,   without   the    least  particle   of 
foppery   or   exaggeration,    and    delight    and    amuse    us, 
without  trespassing  at   all   on   the  province  of  pastoral  3° 
or  romance. 

Next  to  these,  we  think,  he  has  found  his  happiest 
subjects,  or  at  least  displayed  his  greatest  powers,  in  the 
delineation  of  the  grand  and  gloomy  aspects  of  nature, 


138  TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

and  of  the  dark  and  fierce  passions  of  the  heart.  The 
natural  gaiety  of  his  temper  does  not  indeed  allow  him 
to  dwell  long  on  such  themes ;  —  but  the  sketches  he 
occasionally  introduces,  are  executed  with  admirable 
5  force  and  spirit  —  and  give  a  strong  impression  both 
of  the  vigour  of  his  imagination,  and  the  variety  of  his 
talent.  It  is  only  in  the  third  rank  that  we  would  place 
his  pictures  of  chivalry  and  chivalrous  character — his 
traits  of  gallantry,  nobleness,  and  honour  —  and  that 

10  bewitching  combination  of  gay  and  gentle  manners,  with 
generosity,  candour,  and  courage,  which  has  long  been 
familiar  enough  to  readers  and  writers  of  novels,  but  has 
never  before  been  represented  with  such  an  air  of  truth, 
and  so  much  ease  and  happiness  of  execution. 

15       Among  his  faults  and  failures,  we  must  give  the  first 

_place  to  his  descriptions  of  virtuous  young  ladies  —  and 

his  representations  of  the  ordinary  business  of  courtship 

and  conversation  in  polished  life.     We  admit  that  those 

things,  as  they  are  commonly  conducted  in  real  life,  are 

20  apt  to  be  a  little  insipid  to  a  mere  critical  spectator  ;  — 
and  that  while  they  consequently  require  more  heighten- 
ing than  strange  adventures  or  grotesque  persons,  they 
admit  less  of   exaggeration   or    ambitious   ornament :  — 
Yet  we  cannot  think   it   necessary  that  they  should  be 

25  altogether  so  tame  and  mawkish  as  we  generally  find 
them  in  the  hands  of  this  spirited  writer,- — whose  powers 
really  seem  to  require  some  stronger  stimulus  to  bring 
them  into  action,  than  can  be  supplied  by  the  flat 
realities  of  a  peaceful  and  ordinary  existence.  His  love 

30  of  the  ludicrous,  it  must  also  be  observed,  often  betrays 
him  into  forced  and  vulgar  exaggerations,  and  into  the 
repetition  of  common  and  paltry  stories,  —  though  it  is 
but  fair  to  add,  that  he  does  not  detain  us  long  with 
them,  and  makes  amends  by  the  copiousness  of  his 


TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD.  139 

assortment  for  the  indifferent  quality  of  some  of  the 
specimens.  It  is  another  consequence  of  this  extreme 
abundance  in  which  he  revels  and  riots,  and  of  the 
fertility  of  the  imagination  from  which  it  is  supplied,  that 
he  is  at  all  times  a  little  apt  to  overdo  even  those  things  5 
which  he  does  best.  His  most  striking  and  highly 
coloured  characters  appear  rather  too  often,  and  go  on 
rather  too  long.  It  is  astonishing,  indeed,  with  what 
spirit  they  are  supported,  and  how  fresh  and  animated 
they  are  to  the  very  last; — but  still  there  is  something  10 
too  much  of  them  —  and  they  would  be  more  waited  for 
and  welcomed,  if  they  were  not  quite  so  lavish  of  their 
presence.  —  It  was  reserved  for  Shakespeare  alone,  to 
leave  all  his  characters  as  new  and  unworn  as  he  found 
them,  —  and  to  carry  Falstaff  through  the  business  of  15 
three  several  plays,  and  leave  us  as  greedy  of  his  sayings 
as  at  the  moment  of  his  first  introduction.  It  is  no  light 
praise  to  the  author  before  us,  that  he  has  sometimes 
reminded  us  of  this,  as  well  as  other  inimitable  excel- 
lences in  that  most  gifted  of  all  inventors.  20 

To  complete  this  hasty  and  unpremeditated  sketch  of 
his  general  characteristics,  we  must  add,  that  he  is  above 
all  things  national  and  Scottish,  —  and  never  seems  to 
feel  the  powers  of  a  Giant,  except  when  he  touches  his 
native  soil.  His  countrymen  alone,  therefore,  can  have  25 
a  full  sense  of  his  merits,  or  a  perfect  relish  of  his 
excellences  ;  —  and  those  only,  indeed,  of  them,  who 
have  mingled,  as  he  has  done,  pretty  freely  with  the 
lower  orders,  and  made  themselves  familiar  not  only 
with  their  language,  but  with  the  habits  and  traits  of  30 
character,  of  which  it  then  only  becomes  expressive.  It 
is  one  thing  to  understand  the  meaning  of  words,  as  they 
are  explained  by  other  words  in  a  glossary,  and  another 
to  know  their  value,  as  expressive  of  certain  feelings  and 


140  TALSS   OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

humours  in  the  speakers  to  whom  they  are  native,  and  as 
signs  both  of  temper  and  condition  among  those  who  are 
familiar  with  their  import. 

We  must  content  ourselves,  we  fear,  with  this  hasty 
5  and  superficial  sketch  of  the  general  character  of  this 
author's  performances,  in  the  place  of  a  more  detailed 
examination  of  those  which  he  has  given  to  the  public 
since  we  first  announced  him  as  the  author  of  Waverley. 
The  time  for  noticing  his  two  intermediate  works,  has 

10  been  permitted  to  go  by  so  far,  that  it  would  probably  be 
difficult  to  recall  the  public  attention  to  them  with  any 
effect ;  and,  at  all  events,  impossible  to  affect,  by  any 
observations  of  ours,  the  judgment  which  has  been  passed 
upon  them,  with  very  little  assistance,  we  must  say,  from 

15  professed  critics,  by  the  mass  of  their  intelligent  readers, 

—  by  whom,  indeed,  we  have  no  doubt  that  they  are,  by 

this  time,  as  well  known,  and  as  correctly  estimated,  as 

if  they  had  been  indebted  to  us  for  their  first  impressions 

on  the  subject.     For  our  own  parts  we  must  confess,  that 

20  Waverley  still  has  to  us  all  the  fascination  of  a  first  love  ! 
and  that  we  cannot  help  thinking,  that  the  greatness  of 
the  public  transactions  in  which  that  story  was  involved, 
as  well  as  the  wildness  and  picturesque  graces  of  its 
Highland  scenery  and  characters,  have  invested  it  with  a 

25  charm,  to  which  the  more  familiar  attractions  of  the  other 
pieces  have  not  quite  come  up.  In  this,  perhaps,  our 
opinion  differs  from  that  of  better  judges; — but  we 
cannot  help  suspecting,  that  the  latter  publications  are 
most  admired  by  many,  at  least  in  the  southern  part 

30  of  the  island,  only  because  they  are  more  easily  and 
perfectly  understood,  in  consequence  of  the  training 
which  had  been  gone  through  in  the  perusal  of  the 
former.  But,  however  that  be,  we  are  far  enough  from 
denying  that  the  two  succeeding  works  are  performances 


TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD.  141 

of  extraordinary  merit,  —  and  are  willing  even  to  admit, 
that  they  show  quite  as  much  power  and  genius  in  the 
author  —  though,  to  our  taste  at  least,  the  subjects  are 
less  happily  selected. 

*  #  5 

The  scene   of  the   story  thus  strikingly  introduced  is 
laid  —  in  Scotland  of  course  —  in  those  disastrous  times 
which    immediately  preceded   the  Revolution    of  1688  ; 
and  exhibits  a  lively  picture,  both  of  the  general  state  of 
manners  at  that  period,  and  of  the  conduct  and  temper  10 
and  principles  of  the  two  great  parties   in  politics  and 
religion  that  were  then  engaged  in  unequal  and  rancorous 
hostility.     There  are  no  times  certainly,  within  the  reach 
of    authentic   history,    on  which    it    is    more  painful  to 
look  back  —  which  show  a  government  more  base   and  15 
tyrannical,   or  a  people   more   helpless  and    miserable  : 
And  though  all  pictures  of  the  greater  passions  are  full  of 
interest,    and    a    lively    representation    of    strong    and 
enthusiastic  emotions  never  fails  to  be  deeply  attractive, 
the    piece  would   have    been    too    full    of    distress    and  20 
humiliation,    if    it   had   been    chiefly  engaged  with   the 
course  of  public  events,  or  the  record  of  public  feelings. 
So  sad  a  subject  would  not  have  suited  many  readers  — 
and    the    author,   we    suspect,    less    than    any  of    them. 
Accordingly,  in  this,  as  in  his  other  works,  he  has  made  25 
use    of    the    historical    events  which    came    in    his  way, 
rather   to  develope   the   characters,   and   bring   out  the 
peculiarities    of    the    individuals    whose    adventures    he 
relates,  than  for   any  purpose   of  political  information  ; 
and  makes  us  present  to  the  times  in  which  he  has  placed  30 
them,  less  by  his  direct  notices  of  the  great  transactions 
by  which  they  were  distinguished,    than   by  his    casual 
intimations  of  their  effects  on  private  persons,  and  by  the 
very  contrast  which  their  temper  and  occupations  often 


I42  TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

appear  to  furnish  to  the  colour  of  the  national  story. 
Nothing,  indeed,  in  this  respect  is  more  delusive,  or  at 
least  more  woefully  imperfect,  than  the  suggestions  of 
authentic  history,  as  it  is  generally  —  or  rather  universally 
5  written  —  and  nothing  more  exaggerated  than  the 
impressions  it  conveys  of  the  actual  state  and  condition 
of  those  who  live  in  its  most  agitated  periods.  The  great 
public  events  of  which  alone  it  takes  cognizance,  have 
but  little  direct  influence  upon  the  body  of  the  people  ; 

10  and  do  not,  in  general,  form  the  principal  business,  or 
happiness  or  misery  even  of  those  who  are  in  some 
measure  concerned  in  them.  Even  in  the  worst  and  most 
disastrous  times  —  in  periods  of  civil  war  and  revolution, 
and  public  discord  and  oppression,  a  great  part  of  the 

15  time  of  a  great  part  of  the  people  is  still  spent  in  making 
love  and  money  —  in  social  amusement  or  professional 
industry — in  schemes  for  worldly  advancement  or 
personal  distinction,  just  as  in  periods  of  general  peace 
and  prosperity.  Men  court  and  marry  very  nearly  as 

20  much  in  the  one  season  as  in  the  other  ;  and  are  as  merry 
at  weddings  and  christenings  —  as  gallant  at  balls  and 
races  —  as  busy  in  their  studies  and  counting  houses  — 
eat  as  heartily,  in  short,  and  sleep  as  sound  —  prattle 
with  their  children  as  pleasantly  —  and  thin  their 

25  plantations  and  scold  their  servants  as  zealously,  as  if 
their  contemporaries  were  not  furnishing  materials  thus 
abundantly  for  the  Tragic  muse  of  history.  The  quiet 
undercurrent  of  life,  in  short,  keeps  its  deep  and  steady 
course  in  its  eternal  channels,  unaffected,  or  but  slightly 

30  disturbed,  by  the  storms  that  agitate  its  surface  ;  and 
while  long  tracts  of  time,  in  the  history  of  every  country, 
seem,  to  the  distant  student  of  its  annals,  to  be  darkened 
over  with  one  thick  and  oppressive  cloud  of  unbroken 
misery,  the  greater  part  of  those  who  have  lived  through 


TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD.  143 

the  whole  acts  of  the  tragedy  will  be  found  to  have 
enjoyed  a  fair  average  share  of  felicity,  and  to  have  been 
much  less  impressed  by  the  shocking  events  of  their  day 
than  those  who  know  nothing  else  of  it  than  that  such 
events  took  place  in  its  course.  Few  men,  in  short,  are  5 
historical  characters  —  and  scarcely  any  man  is  always, 
or  most  usually,  performing  a  public  part.  The  actual 
happiness  of  every  life  depends  far  more  on  things  that 
regard  it  exclusively,  than  on  those  political  occurrences 
which  are  the  common  concern  of  society  ;  and  though  10 
nothing  lends  such  an  air,  both  of  reality  and  importance, 
to  a  fictitious  narrative,  as  to  connect  its  persons  with 
events  in  real  history,  still  it  is  the  imaginary  individual 
himself  that  excites  our  chief  interest  throughout,  and  we 
care  for  the  national  affairs  only  in  so  far  as  they  affect  15 
him.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  this  is  the  true  end  and 
the  best  use  of  history  ;  for  as  all  public  events  are 
important  only  as  they  ultimately  concern  individuals,  if 
the  individual  selected  belong  to  a  large  and  compre- 
hensive class,  and  the  events,  and  their  natural  operation  20 
on  him,  be  justly  represented,  we  shall  be  enabled,  in 
following  out  his  adventures,  to  form  no  bad  estimate  of 
their  true  character  and  value  for  all  the  rest  of  the 
community. 

The  author  before  us  has  done  all  this,  we  think ;  and  25 
with  admirable  talent  and  effect  :  and  if  he  has  not  been 
quite    impartial    in    the    management    of    his    historical 
persons,    has    contrived,    at    any  rate,    to    make    them 
contribute  largely  to   the  interest  of    his   acknowledged 
inventions.     His   view  of  the    effects   of  great  political  30 
contentions  on  private  happiness,  is  however,  we  have  no 
doubt,  substantially  true  ;    and  that  chiefly  because  it  is 
not  exaggerated  —  because  he  does  not  confine  himself 
to  show  how  gentle  natures  may  be  roused  into  heroism, 


144  TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

or  rougher  tempers  exasperated  into  rancour,  by  public 
oppression,  —  but  turns  still  more  willingly  to  show  with 
what  ludicrous  absurdity  genuine  enthusiasm  may  be 
debased,  how  little  the  gaiety  of  the  light-hearted  and 
5  thoughtless  may  be  impaired  by  the  spectacle  of  public 
calamity,  and  how,  in  the  midst  of  national  distraction, 
selfishness  will  pursue  its  little  game  of  quiet  and  cunning 
speculation  —  and  gentler  affections  find  time  to  multiply 
and  to  meet  ! 

10  It  is  this,  we  think,  that  constitutes  the  great  and 
peculiar  merit  of  the  work  before  us.  It  contains  an 
admirable  picture  of  manners  and  of  characters  ;  and 
exhibits,  we  think,  with  great  truth  and  discrimination, 
the  extent  and  the  variety  of  the  shades  which  the 

15  stormy  aspect  of  the  political  horizon  would  be  likely  to 
throw  on  such  objects.  And  yet,  though  exhibiting 
beyond  all  doubt  the  greatest  possible  talent  and 
originality,  we  cannot  help  fancying  that  we  can  trace  the 
rudiments  of  almost  all  its  characters  in  the  very  first 

20  of  the  author's  publications.  —  Morton  is  but  another 
edition  of  Waverley  ;  —  taking  a  bloody  part  in  political 
contention,  without  caring  much  about  the  cause,  and 
interchanging  high  offices  of  generosity  with  his  political 
opponents.  —  Claverhouse  has  many  of  the  features  of 

25  the  gallant  Fergus.  —  Cuddie  Headrigg,  of  whose  merits, 
by  the  way,  we  have  given  no  fair  specimen  in  our 
extracts,  is  a  Dandie  Dinmont  of  a  considerably  lower 
species  ;  —  and  even  the  Covenanters  and  their  leaders 
were  shadowed  out,  though  afar  off,  in  the  gifted  Gilfillan, 

30  and  mine  host  of  the  Candlestick.  It  is  in  the  picture 
of  these  hapless  enthusiasts,  undoubtedly,  that  the  great 
merit  and  the  great  interest  of  the  work  consists.  That 
interest,  indeed,  is  so  great,  that  we  perceive  it  has  even 
given  rise  to  a  sort  of  controversy  among  the  admirers 


TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD.  145 

and  contemners  of  those  ancient  worthies.  It  is  a 
singular  honour,  no  doubt,  to  a  work  of  fiction  and 
amusement,  to  be  thus  made  the  theme  of  serious  attack 
and  defence  upon  points  of  historical  and  theological 
discussion  ;  and  to  have  grave  dissertations  written  by  5 
learned  contemporaries  upon  the  accuracy  of  its  repre- 
sentations of  public  events  and  characters,  or  the  moral 
effects  of  the  style  of  ridicule  in  which  it  indulges.  It 
is  difficult  for  us,  we  confess,  to  view  the  matter  in  so 
serious  a  light  ;  nor  do  we  feel  much  disposed,  even  if  10 
we  had  leisure  for  the  task,  to  venture  ourselves  into  the 
array  of  the  disputants.  One  word  or  two,  however,  we 
shall  say,  before  concluding,  upon  the  two  great  points  of 
difference,  First,  as  to  the  author's  profanity,  in  making 
scriptural  expressions  ridiculous  by  the  misuse  of  them  15 
he  has  ascribed  to  the  fanatics  ;  and,  secondly,  as  to  the 
fairness  of  his  general  representation  of  the  conduct  and 
character  of  the  insurgent  party  and  their  opponents. 

As  to  the  first,  we  do  not  know  very  well  what  to 
say.  Undoubtedly,  all  light  or  jocular  use  of  Scripture  20 
phraseology  is  in  some  measure  indecent  and  profane  : 
Yet  we  do  not  know  in  what  other  way  those  hypocritical 
pretences  to  extraordinary  sanctity  which  generally 
disguise  themselves  in  such  a  garb,  can  be  so  effectually 
exposed.  And  even  where  the  ludicrous  misapplication  25 
of  holy  writ  arises  from  mere  ignorance,  or  the  foolish 
mimicry  of  more  learned  discoursers,  as  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  smiling  at  the  folly  when  it  actually  occurs,  it  is 
difficult  for  witty  and  humorous  writers,  in  whose  way  it 
lies,  to  resist  fabricating  it  for  the  purpose  of  exciting  3° 
smiles.  In  so  far  as  practice  can  afford  any  justification 
of  such  a  proceeding,  we  conceive  that  its  justification 
would  be  easy.  In  all  our  jest-books,  and  plays  and 
works  of  humour  for  two  centuries  back,  the  characters 


I46  TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

of  Quakers  and  Puritans  and  Methodists,  have  been 
constantly  introduced  as  fit  objects  of  ridicule,  on  this 
very  account.  The  Reverend  Jonathan  Swift  is  full  of 
jokes  of  this  description  ;  and  the  pious  and  correct 
5  Addison  himself  is  not  a  little  fond  of  a  sly  and  witty 
application  of  a  text  from  the  sacred  writings.  When  an 
author,  therefore,  whose  aim  was  amusement,  had  to  do 
with  a  set  of  people,  all  of  whom  dealt  in  familiar 
applications  of  Bible  phrases  and  Old  Testament  adven- 

10  tures,  and  who,  undoubtedly,  very  often  made  absurd  and 
ridiculous  applications  of  them,  it  would  be  rather  hard, 
we  think,  to  interdict  him  entirely  from  the  representation 
of  these  absurdities  ;  or  to  put  in  force,  for  him  alone, 
those  statutes  against  profaneness  which  so  many  other 

15  people  have  been  allowed  to  transgress,  in  their  hours  of 
gaiety,  without  censure  or  punishment. 

On  the  other  point,  also,  we  rather  lean  to  the  side  of 
the  author.  He  is  a  Tory,  we  think,  pretty  plainly  in 
principle,  and  scarcely  disguises  his  preference  for  a 

20  Cavalier  over  a  Puritan  :  But,  with  these  propensities,  we 
think  he  has  dealt  pretty  fairly  with  both  sides  —  es- 
pecially when  it  is  considered  that,  though  he  lays  his 
scene  in  a  known  crisis  of  his  national  history,  his  work 
is  professedly  a  work  of  fiction,  and  cannot  well  be 

25  accused  of  misleading  any  one  as  to  matters  of  fact.  He 
might  have  made  Claverhouse  victorious  at  Drumclog,  if 
he  had  thought  fit- — and  nobody  could  have  found  fault 
with  him.  The  insurgent  Presbyterians  of  1666  and  the 
subsequent  years,  were,  beyond  all  question,  a  pious, 

30  brave,  and  conscientious  race  of  men  —  to  whom,  and  to 
whose  efforts  and  sufferings,  their  descendants  are  deeply 
indebted  for  the  liberty  both  civil  and  religious  which 
they  still  enjoy,  as  well  as  for  the  spirit  of  resistance  to 
tyranny,  which,  we  trust,  they  have  inherited  along  with 


TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD.  14? 

it.  Considered  generally  as  a  party,  it  is  impossible  that 
they  should  ever  be  remembered,  at  least  in  Scotland, 
but  with  gratitude  and  veneration  —  that  their  sufferings 
should  ever  be  mentioned  but  with  deep  resentment  and 
horror  —  or  their  heroism,  both  active  and  passive,  but  5 
with  pride  and  exultation.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  deny,  that  there  were  among  them  many  absurd 
and  ridiculous  persons  —  and  some  of  a  savage  and 
ferocious  character  —  old  women,  in  short,  like  Mause 
Headrigg  —  preachers  like  Kettledrummle  —  or  despera-  10 
does  like  Balfour  of  Burley.  That  a  Tory  novelist 
should  bring  such  characters  prominently  forward,  in  a 
tale  of  the  times,  appears  to  us  not  only  to  be  quite 
natural,  but  really  to  be  less  blamable  than  almost  any 
other  way  in  which  party  feelings  could  be  shown.  But,  15 
even  he,  has  not  represented  the  bulk  of  the  party  as 
falling  under  this  description,  or  as  fairly  represented  by 
such  personages.  He  has  made  his  hero  —  who,  of 
course,  possesses  all  possible  virtues  —  of  that  per- 
suasion ;  and  has  allowed  them,  in  general,  the  courage  20 
of  martyrs,  the  self-denial  of  hermits,  and  the  zeal  and 
sincerity  of  apostles.  His  representation  is  almost 
avowedly  that  of  one  who  is  not  of  their  communion  ; 
and  yet  we  think  it  impossible  to  peruse  it,  without  feel- 
ing the  greatest  respect  and  pity  for  those  to  whom  it  is  25 
applied.  A  zealous  Presbyterian  might,  no  doubt,  have 
said  more  in  their  favour,  without  violating,  or  even  con- 
cealing the  truth  ;  but,  while  zealous  Presbyterians  will 
not  write  entertaining  novels  themselves,  they  cannot 
expect  to  be  treated  in  them  with  exactly  the  same  favour  30 
as  if  that  had  been  the  character  of  their  authors. 

With  regard  to  the  author's  picture  of  their  opponents, 
we  must  say  that,  with  the  exception  of  Claverhouse  him- 
self, whom  he  has  invested  gratuitously  with  many  graces 


148  TALES   OF  MY  LANDLORD. 

and  liberalities  to  which  we  are  persuaded  he  has  no 
title,  and  for  whom,  indeed,  he  has  a  foolish  fondness, 
with  which  it'  would  be  absurd  to  deal  seriously  —  he  has 
shown  no  signs  of  a  partiality  that  can  be  blamed,  nor 
5  exhibited  many  traits  in  them  with  which  their  enemies 
have  reason  to  quarrel.  If  any  person  can  read  his 
strong  and  lively  pictures  of  military  insolence  and 
oppression,  without  feeling  his  blood  boil  within  him,  we 
must  conclude  the  fault  to  be  in  his  own  apathy,  and  not 

10  in  any  softenings  of  the  partial  author:  —  nor  do  we 
know  any  Whig  writer  who  has  exhibited  the  baseness 
and  cruelty  of  that  wretched  government,  in  more  naked 
and  revolting  deformity,  than  in  his  scene  of  the  torture 
at  the  Privy  Council.  The  military  executions  of  Claver- 

15  house  himself  are  admitted  without  palliation  :  and  the 
bloodthirstiness  of  Dalzell,  and  the  brutality  of  Lauder- 
dale,  are  represented  in  their  true  colours.  In  short,  if 
this  author  has  been  somewhat  severe  upon  the  Cove- 
nanters, neither  has  he  spared  their  oppressors  ;  and  the 

20  truth  probably  is,  that  never  drearm'ng  of  being  made 
responsible  for  historical  accuracy  or  fairness  in  a  com- 
position of  this  description,  he  has  exaggerated  a  little  on 
both  sides,  for  the  sake  of  effect  —  and  been  carried,  by 
the  bent  of  his  humour,  most  frequently  to  exaggerate  on 

25  that  which  afforded  the  greatest  scope  for  ridicule. 


I 

ESSAYS  ON  THE  NATURE  AND  PRINCIPLES 
OF  TASTE. 


By  Archibald  Alison,  LL.B.,  F.R.S.,  Prebendary  of  Sarum,  etc. 

2  Vols.  8VO. 


***** 

IT  is  unnecessary,  however,  to  pursue  these  criticisms, 
or,  indeed,  this  hasty  review  of  the  speculation  of  other 
writers,  any  farther.  The  few  observations  we  have 
already  made,  will  enable  the  intelligent  reader,  both  to 
understand  in  a  general  way  what  has  been  already  done  5 
on  the  subject,  and  in  some  degree  prepare  him  to 
appreciate  the  merits  of  that  theory,  substantially  the 
same  with  Mr.  Alison's,  which  we  shall  now  proceed  to 
illustrate  somewhat  more  in  detail. 

The  basis  of  it  is,  that  the  beauty  which  we  impute  to  10 
outward  objects,  is  nothing  more   than  the  reflection  of 
our  own  inward  emotions,  and  is  made  up  entirely  of 
certain  little  portions  of  love,  pity,  or  other  affections, 
which    have   been    connected   with    these    objects,    and 
still    adhere    as    it   were    to  them,  and    move    us    anew  15 
whenever  they  are  presented  to  our  observation.     Before 
proceeding   to    bring   any   proof    of   the    truth    of    this 
proposition,  there  are  two  things  that  it  may  be  proper  to 
explain    a   little    more    distinctly.     First,  What    are   the 
primary  affections,  by  the  suggestion   of  which  we  think  20 
the  sense  of  beauty  is  produced  ?     And,  secondly,  What 
is  the  nature  of  the  connection  by  which  we  suppose  that 
the  objects  we  call  beautiful  are  enabled  to  suggest  these 
affections  ? 


150         NATURE  AND  PRINCIPLES   OF  TASTE. 

With  regard  to  the  first  of  these  points,  it  fortunately 
is  not  necessary  either  to  enter  into  any  tedious  (details, 
or  to  have  recourse  to  any  nice  distinctions.  All 
sensations  that  are  not  absolutely  indifferent,  and  are,  at 
5  the  same  time,  either  agreeable,  when  experienced  by 
ourselves,  or  attractive  when  contemplated  in  others,  may 
form  the  foundation  of  the  emotions  of  sublimity  or 
beauty.  The  love  of  sensation  seems  to  be  the  ruling 
appetite  of  human  nature  ;  and  many  sensations,  in  which 

10  the  painful  may  be  thought  to  predominate,  are  conse- 
quently sought  for  with  avidity,  and  recollected  with 
interest,  even  in  our  own  persons.  In  the  persons  of 
others,  emotions  still  more  painful  are  contemplated  with 
eagerness  and  delight  :  and  therefore  we  must  not  be 

15  surprised  to  find,  that  many  of  the  pleasing  sensations  of 
beauty  or  sublimity  resolve  themselves  ultimately  into 
recollections  of  feelings  that  may  appear  to  have  a  very 
opposite  character.  The  sum  of  the  whole  is,  that  every 
feeling  which  it  is  agreeable  to  experience,  to  recal,  or  to 

20  witness,  may  become  the  source  of  beauty  in  external 
objects,  when  it  is  so  connected  with  them  as  that ,  their 
appearance  reminds  us  of  that  feeling.  Now,  in  real 
life,  and  from  daily  experience  and  observation,  we  know 
that  it  is  agreeable,  in  the  first  place,  to  recollect  our  own 

25  pleasurable  sensations,  or  to  be  enabled  to  form  a  lively 
conception  of  the  pleasures  of  other  men,  or  even  of 
sentient  beings  of  any  description.  We  know  likewise, 
from  the  same  sure  authority,  that  there  is  a  certain 
delight  in  the  remembrance  of  our  past,  or  the  conception 

30  of  our  future  emotions,  even  though  attended  with  great 
pain,  provided  the  pain  be  not  forced  too  rudely  on  the 
mind,  and  be  softened  by  the  accompaniment  of  any 
milder  feeling.  And  finally,  we  know,  in  the  same 
manner,  that  the  spectacle  or  conception  of  the  emotions 


NATURE  AND  PRINCIPLES  OF  TASTE.         151 

of  others,  even  when  in  a  high  degree  painful,  is 
extremely  interesting  and  attractive,  and  draws  us  away, 
not  only  from  the  consideration  of  indifferent  objects, 
but  even  from  the  pursuit  of  light  or  frivolous  enjoyments. 
All  these  are  plain  and  familiar  facts  ;  of  the  existence  5 
of  which,  however  they  may  be  explained,  no  one  can 
entertain  the  slightest  doubt  —  and  into  which,  therefore, 
we  shall  have  made  no  inconsiderable  progress,  if  we 
can  resolve  the  more  mysterious  fact,  of  the  emotions 
we  receive  from  trlfe  contemplation  of  sublimity  or  10 
beauty. 

Our  proposition  then  is,  that  these  emotions  are  not 
original  emotions,  nor  produced  directly  by  any  material 
qualities  in  the  objects  which  excite  them  ;  but  are 
reflections,  or  images,  of  the  more  radical  and  familiar  15 
emotions  to  which  we  have  already  alluded  ;  and  are  occa- 
sioned, not  by  any  inherent  virtue  in  the  objects  before 
us,  but  by  the  accidents,  if  we  may  so  express  ourselves, 
by  which  these  may  have  been  enabled  to  suggest  or 
recal  to  us  our  past  sensations  or  sympathies.  We  might  20 
almost  venture,  indeed,  to  lay  it  down  as  an  axiom,  that, 
except  in  the  plain  and  palpable  case  of  bodily  pain  or 
pleasure,  we  can  never  be  interested  in  any  thing  but  the 
fortunes  of  sentient  beings  ;  —  and  that  every  thing 
partaking  of  the  nature  of  mental  emotion,  must  have  2; 
for  its  object  the  feelings,  past,  present,  or  possible,  of 
something  capable  of  sensation.  Independent,  therefore, 
of  all  evidence,  and  without  the  help  of  any  explanation, 
we  should  have  been  apt  to  conclude,  that  the  emotions 
of  beauty  and  sublimity  must  have  for  their  objects  the  3C 
sufferings  or  enjoyments  of  sentient  beings  ;  —  and  to 
reject,  as  intrinsically  absurd  and  incredible,  the  suppo- 
sition that  material  objects,  which  obviously  do  neither 
hurt  nor  delight  the  body,  should  yet  excite,  by  their 


152         NATURE  AND  PRINCIPLES  OF  TASTE. 

mere  physical  qualities,  the  very  powerful  emotions  which 
are  sometimes  excited  by  the  spectacle  of  beauty. 

Of  the  feelings,  by  their  connection  with  which  external 
objects  become  beautiful,  we  do  not  think  it  necessary  to 
5  speak  more  minutely  ;  —  and,  therefore,  it  only  remains, 
under  this  preliminary  view  of  the  subject,  to  explain  the 
nature  of  that  connection  by  which  we  conceive  this 
effect  to  be  produced.  Here,  also,  there  is  but  little 
need  for  minuteness,  or  fulness  of  enumeration.  Almost 

10  every  tie,  by  which  two  objects  cafi  be  bound  together 
in  the  imagination,  in  such  a  manner  as  that  the 
presentment  of  the  one  shall  recal  the  memory  of  the 
other  ;  — or,  in  other  words,  almost  every  possible  relation 
which  can  subsist  between  such  objects,  may  serve  to 

15  connect  the  things  we   call   sublime   and  beautiful,  with 

feelings    that    are   interesting  or  delightful.     It  may  be 

useful,    however,    to   class   these   bonds   of    association 

between  mind  and  matter  in  a  rude  and  general  way. 

It  appears  to  us,  then,  that   objects    are    sublime   or 

20  beautiful,  first,  when  they  are  the  natural  signs,  and 
perpetual  concomitants  of  pleasurable  sensations,  or,  at 
any  rate,  of  some  lively  feeling  of  emotion  in  ourselves 
or  in  some  other  sentient  beings  ;  or,  secondly,  when  they 
are  the  arbitrary  or  accidental  concomitants  of  such 

25  feelings  ;  or,  thirdly,  when  they  bear  some  analogy  or 
fanciful  resemblance  to  things  with  which  these  emotions 
are  necessarily  connected.  In  endeavouring  to  illustrate 
the  nature  of  these  several  relations,  we  shall  be  led  to 
lay  before  our  readers  some  proofs  that  appear  to  us 

30  satisfactory  of  the  truth  of  the  general  theory. 

The  most  obvious,  and  the  strongest  association  that 
can  be  established  between  inward  feelings  and  external 
objects  is,  where  the  object  is  necessarily  and  universally 
connected  with  the  feeling  by  the  law  of  nature,  so  that 


NATURE  AND   PRINCIPLES  OF   TASTE.         153 

it  is  always  presented  to  the  senses  when  the  feeling  is 
impressed  upon  the  mind  —  as  the  sight  or  the  sound  of 
laughter,  with  the  feeling  of  gaiety  —  of  weeping,  with 
distress  —  of  the  sound  of  thunder,  with  ideas  of  danger 
and  power.  Let  us  dwell  for  a  moment  on  the  last  5 
instance.  —  Nothing,  perhaps,  in  the  whole  range  of 
nature,  is  more  strikingly  and  universally  sublime  than 
the  sound  we  have  just  mentioned  ;  yet  it  seems  obvious, 
that  the  sense  of  sublimity  is  produced,  not  by  any 
quality  that  is  perceived  by  the  ear,  but  altogether  by  the  10 
impression  of  power  and  of  danger  that  is  necessarily 
made  upon  the  mind,  whenever  that  sound  is  heard. 
That  it  is  not  produced  by  any  peculiarity  in  the  sound 
itself,  is  certain,  from  the  mistakes  that  are  frequently 
made  with  regard  to  it.  The  noise  of  a  cart  rattling  over  15 
the  stones,  is  often  mistaken  for  thunder  ;  and  as  long 
as  the  mistake  lasts,  this  very  vulgar  and  insignificant 
noise  is  actually  felt  to  be  prodigiously  sublime.  It  is  so 
felt,  however,  it  is  perfectly  plain,  merely  because  it  is 
then  associated  with  ideas  of  prodigious  power  and  20 
undefined  danger  ;  —  and  the  sublimity  is  accordingly 
destroyed,  the  moment  the  association  is  dissolved,  though 
the  sound  itself  and  its  effect  on  the  organ,  continue 
exactly  the  same.  This,  therefore,  is  an  instance  in 
which  sublimity  is  distinctly  proved  to  consist,  not  in  any  25 
physical  quality  of  the  object  to  which  it  is  ascribed,  but 
in  its  necessary  connection  with  that  vast  and  uncontrolled 
Power  which  is  the  natural  object  of  awe  and  veneration. 


The  only  other  advantage  which  we  shall  specify  as 
likely  to  result  from  the  general  adoption  of  the  theory  30 
we  have  been  endeavouring  to  illustrate  is,  that  it  seems 


154         NATURE  AND   PRINCIPLES  OF  TASTE. 

calculated  to  put  an  end  to  all  these  perplexing  and 
vexatious  questions  about  the  standard  of  taste,  which 
have  given  occasion  to  so  much  impertinent  and  so 
much  elaborate  discussion.  If  things  are  not  beautiful 
5  in  themselves,  but  only  as  they  serve  to  suggest  inter- 
esting conceptions  to  the  mind,  then  every  thing  which 
does  in  point  of  fact  suggest  such  a  conception  to  any 
individual,  is  beautiful  to  that  individual ;  and  it  is  not 
only  quite  true  that  there  is  no  room  for  disputing  about 

10  tastes,  but  that  all  tastes  are  equally  just  and  correct, 

.  in  so  far  as  each  individual  speaks  only  of  his  own 
emotions.  When  a  man  calls  a  thing  beautiful,  how- 
ever, he  may  indeed,  mean  to  make  two  very  different 
assertions  ;  —  he  may  mean  that  it  gives  him  pleasure  by 

15  suggesting  to  him  some  interesting  emotion  ;  and,  in  this 
sense,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  he  merely  speak 
truth,  the  thing  is  beautiful ;  and  that  it  pleases  him 
precisely  in  the  same  way  that  all  other  things  please 
those  to  whom  they  appear  beautiful.  But  if  he  mean 

20  farther  to  say  that  the  thing  possesses  some  quality 
which  should  make  it  appear  beautiful  to  every  other 
person,  and  that  it  is  owing  to  some  prejudice  or  defect 
in  them  if  it  appear  otherwise,  then  he  is  as  unreasonable 
and  absurd  as  he  would  think  those  who  should  attempt 

25  to  convince  him  that  he  felt  no  emotion  of  beauty. 

All  tastes,  then,  are  equally  just  and  true,  in  so  far  as 
concerns  the  individual  whose  taste  is  in  question  ;  and 
what  a  man  feels  distinctly  to  be  beautiful,  is  beautiful  to 
him,  whatever  other  people  may  think  of  it.  All  this 

30  follows  clearly  from  the  theory  now  in  question  :  but  it 
does  not  follow,  from  it,  that  all  tastes  are  equally  good 
or  desirable,  or  that  there  is  any  difficulty  in  describing 
that  which  is  really  the  best,  and  the  most  to  be  envied. 
The  only  use  of  the  faculty  of  taste  is  to  afford  an 


NATURE  AND  PRINCIPLES   OF   TASTE.         155 

innocent  delight,  and  to  assist  in  the  cultivation  of  a 
finer  morality  ;  and  that  man  certainly  will  have  the  most 
delight  from  this  faculty,  who  ha,s  the  most  numerous  and 
the  most  powerful  perceptions  of  beauty.  But,  if  beauty 
consist  in  the  reflection  of  our  affections  and  sympathies,  5 
it  is  plain  that  he  will  always  see  the  most  beauty  whose 
affections  are  the  warmest  and  most  exercised  —  whose 
imagination  is  the  most  powerful,  and  who  has  most 
accustomed  himself  to  attend  to  the  objects  by  which  he 
is  surrounded.  In  so  far  as  mere  feeling  and  enjoyment  10 
are  concerned,  therefore,  it  seems  evident,  that  the  best 
taste  must  be  that  which  belongs  to  the  best  affections, 
the  most  active  fancy,  and  the  most  attentive  habits  of 
observation.  It  will  follow  pretty  exactly  too,  that  all 
men's  perceptions  of  beauty  will  be  nearly  in  proportion  15 
to  the  degree  of  their  sensibility  and  social  sympathies  ; 
and  that  those  who  have  no  affections  towards  sentient 
beings,  will  be  as  certainly  insensible  to  beauty  in  external 
objects,  as  he,  who  cannot  hear  the  sound  of  his  friend's 
voice,  must  be  deaf  to  its  echo.  20 

In  so  far  as  the  sense  of  beauty  is  regarded  as  a  mere 
source  of  enjoyment,  this  seems  to  be  the  only  distinction 
that  deserves  to  be  attended  to  ;  and  the  only  cultivation 
that  taste  should  ever  receive,  with  a  view  to  the  gratifi- 
cation of  the  individual,  should  be  through  the  indirect  25 
channel  of  cultivating  the  affections  and  powers  of  obser- 
vation. If  we  aspire,  however,  to  be  creators,  as  well  as 
observers  of  beauty,  and  place  any  part  of  our  happiness 
in  ministering  to  the  gratification  of  others  —  as  artists, 
or  poets,  or  authors  of  any  sort  —  then,  indeed,  a  new  30 
distinction  of  tastes,  and  a  far  more  laborious  system  of 
cultivation,  will  be  necessary.  A  man  who  pursues  only 
his  own  delight,  will  be  as  much  charmed  with  objects 
that  suggest  powerful  emotions  in  consequence  of  per- 


156         NATURE  AND   PRINCIPLES  OF  TASTE. 

sonal  and  accidental  associations,  as  with  those  that 
introduce  similar  emotions  by  means  of  associations  that 
are  universal  and  indestructible.  To  him,  all  objects  of 
the  former  class  are  really  as  beautiful  as  those  of  the 
5  latter  —  and  for  his  own  gratification,  the  creation  of 
that  sort  of  beauty  is  just  as  important  an  occupation  : 
but  if  he  conceive  the  ambition  of  creating  beauties  for 
the  admiration  of  others,  he  must  be  cautious  to  employ 
only  such  objects  as  are  the  natural  signs,  or  the  insepara- 

10  Me  concomitants  of  emotions,  of  which  the  greater  part 
of  mankind  are  susceptible  ;  and  his  taste  will  then  deserve 
to  be  called  bad  and  false,  if  he  obtrude  upon  the  public, 
as  beautiful,  objects  that  are  not  likely  to  be  associated 
in  common  minds  with  any  interesting  impressions. 

15  For  a  man  himself,  then,  there  is  no  taste  that  is  either 
bad  or  false  ;  and  the  only  difference  worthy  of  being 
attended  to,  is  that  between  a  great  deal  and  a  very 
little.  Some  who  have  cold  affections,  sluggish  imagina- 
tions, and  no  habits  of  observation,  can  with  difficulty 

20  discern  beauty  in  any  thing ;  while  others,  who  are 
full  of  kindness  and  sensibility,  and  who  have  been 
accustomed  to  attend  to  all  the  objects  around  them, 
feel  it  almost  in  every  thing.  It  is  no  matter  what  other 
people  may  think  of  the  objects  of  their  admiration  ;  nor 

25  ought  it  to  be  any  concern  of  theirs  that  the  public  would 
be  astonished  or  offended,  if  they  were  called  upon  to 
join  in  that  admiration.  So  long  as  no  such  call  is 
made,  this  anticipated  discrepancy  of  feeling  need  give 
them  no  uneasiness  ;  and  the  suspicion  of  it  should  pro- 

30  duce  no  contempt  in  any  other  persons.  It  is  a  strange 
aberration  indeed  of  vanity  that  makes  us  despise  persons 
for  being  happy  —  for  having  sources  of  enjoyment  in 
which  we  cannot  share  :  —  and  yet  this  is  the  true  source 
of  the  ridicule,  which  is  so  generally  poured  upon  indi- 


NATURE  AND   PRINCIPLES   OF   TASTE.         157 

viduals  who  seek  only  to  enjoy  their  peculiar  tastes 
unmolested  :  —  for,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  theory 
we  have  been  expounding,  no  taste  is  bad  for  any  other 
reason  than  because  it  is  peculiar  —  as  the  objects  in 
which  it  delights  must  actually  serve  to  suggest  to  the  5 
individual  those  common  emotions  and  universal  affec- 
tions upon  which  the  sense  of  beauty  is  every  where 
founded.  The  misfortune  is,  however,  that  we  are  apt 
to  consider  all  persons  who  make  known  their  peculiar 
relishes,  and  especially  all  who  create  any  objects  for  10 
their  gratification,  as  in  some  measure  dictating  to  the 
public,  and  setting  up  an  idol  for  general  adoration  ;  and 
hence  this  intolerant  interference  with  almost  all  peculiar 
perceptions  of  beauty,  and  the  unsparing  derision  that 
pursues  all  deviations  from  acknowledged  standards.  15 
This  intolerance,  we  admit,  is  often  provoked  by  some- 
thing of  a  spirit  of  proselytism  and  arrogance,  in  those 
who  mistake  their  own  casual  associations  for  natural 
or  universal  relations  ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that 
mortified  vanity  ultimately  dries  up,  even  for  them,  the  20 
fountain  of  their  peculiar  enjoyment ;  and  disenchants, 
by  a  new  association  of  general  contempt  or  ridicule,  the 
scenes  that  had  been  consecrated  by  some  innocent  but 
accidental  emotion. 

As  all  men  must  have  some  peculiar  associations,  all  25 
men  must  have  some  peculiar  notions  of  beauty,  and,  of 
course,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  taste  that  the  public  would 
be  entitled  to  consider  as  false  or  vitiated.     For  those 
who  make  no  demands  on  public  admiration,  however,  it 
is  hard  to.be  obliged  to  sacrifice  this  source  of  enjoy-  30 
ment ;    and,  even  for  those  who  labour  for  applause,  the 
wisest  course,  perhaps,  if  it  were  only  practicable,  would 
be,  to  have  two  tastes  —  one  to  enjoy,  and  one  to  work 
by  —  one  founded  upon  universal  associations,  according 


IS8         NATURE   AND   PRINCIPLES   OF   TASTE. 

to  which  they  finished  those  performances  for  which  they 
challenged  univeral  praise  —  and  another  guided  by  all 
casual  and  individual  associations,  through  which  they 
might  still  look  fondly  upon  nature,  ard  upon  the  objects 
5  of  their  secret  admiration. 


WILHELM  MEISTER'S  APPRENTICESHIP. 


A  Novel.     From  the  German  of  Goethe,    j  vols.   i2mo,  pp.  fojo. 
Edinburgh,  1824.. 


THERE  are  few  things  that  at  first  sight  appear  more 
capricious  and  unaccountable,  than  the  diversities  of 
national  taste  ;  and  yet  there  are  not  many,  that,  to  a 
certain  extent  at  least,  admit  of  a  clearer  explanation. 
They  form  evidently  a  section  in  the  great  chapter  of  5 
National  Character  ;  and,  proceeding  on  the  assumption, 
that  human  nature  is  everywhere  fundamentally  the  same, 
it  is  not  perhaps  very  difficult  to  indicate,  in  a  general 
way,  the  circumstances  which  have  distinguished  it  into 
so  many  local  varieties.  10 

These  may  be  divided  into  two  great  classes,  —  the 
one  embracing  all  that  relates  to  the  newness  or  antiquity 
of  the  society  to  which  they  belong,  or,  in  other  words,  to 
the  stage  which  any  particular  nation  has  attained  in  that 
great  progress  from  rudeness  to  refinement,  in  which  all  15 
are  engaged  ;  —  the  other  comprehending  what  may  be 
termed  the  accidental  causes  by  which  the  character  and 
condition  of  communities  may  be  affected  ;  such  as  their 
government,  their  relative  position  as  to  power  and 
civilization  to  neighbouring  countries,  their  prevailing  20 
occupations,  determined  in  some  degree  by  the  capabili- 
ties of  their  soil  and  climate,  and  more  than  all  perhaps, 
as  to  the  question  of  taste,  the  still  more  accidental 
circumstance  of  the  character  of  their  first  models  of 


160        WILHELM  MEISTEPS  APPRENTICESHIP. 

excellence,  or  the  kind  of  merit  by  which  their  admiration 
and  national  vanity  had  first  been  excited. 

It  is  needless  to  illustrate  these  obvious  sources  of 
peculiarity  at  any  considerable  length.  It  is  not  more 
5  certain,  that  all  primitive  communities  proceed  to  civiliza- 
tion by  nearly  the  same  stages,  than  that  the  progress  of 
taste  is  marked  by  corresponding  gradations,  and  may,  in 
most  cases,  be  distinguished  into  periods,  the  order  and 
succession  of  which  is  nearly  as  uniform  and  determined. 

10  If  tribes  of  savage  men  always  proceed,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  from  the  occupation  of  hunting  to  that  of 
pasturage,  from  that  to  agriculture,  and  from  that  to 
commerce  and  manufactures,  the  sequence  is  scarcely 
less  invariable  in  the  history  of  letters  and  art.  In 

15  the  former,   verse    is   uniformly  antecedent    to   prose  — 
marvellous  legends  to  correct  history  —  exaggerated  sen- 
timents to  just  representations  of  nature.     Invention,  in 
short,  regularly  comes  before  judgment,  warmth  of  feeling 
before  correct  reasoning  —  and  splendid  declamation  and 

20  broad  humour  before  delicate  simplicity  or  refined  wit.  In 
the  arts  again,  the  progress  is  strictly  analogous— from 
mere  monstrosity  to  ostentatious  displays  of  labour  and 
design,  first  in  massive  formality,  and  next  in  fantastical 
minuteness,  variety,  and  flutter  of  parts  ;  —  and  then, 

25  through  the  gradations  of  startling  contrasts  and  over- 
wrought expression,  to  the  repose  and  simplicity  of 
graceful  nature. 

These    considerations    alone    explain    much    of    that 
contrariety  of  taste  by  which  different  nations  are  dis- 

30  tinguished.  They  not  only  start  in  the  great  career  of 
improvement  at  different  times,  but  they  advance  in  it 
with  different  velocities  —  some  lingering  longer  in  one 
stage  than  another  —  some  obstructed  and  some  helped 
forward,  by  circumstances  operating  on  them  from  within 


WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP.       161 

or  from  without.  It  is  the  unavoidable  consequence, 
however,  of  their  being  in  any  one  particular  position, 
that  they  will  judge  of  their  own  productions  and  those 
of  their  neighbours,  according  to  that  standard  of  taste 
which  belongs  to  the  place  they  then  hold  in  this  great  5 
circle ;  —  and  that  a  whole  people  will  look  on  their 
neighbours  with  wonder  and  scorn,  for  admiring  what 
their  own  grandfathers  looked  on  with  equal  admiration, 
—  while  they  themselves  are  scorned  and  vilified  in 
return,  for  tastes  which  will  infallibly  be  adopted  by  the  10 
grandchildren  of  those  who  despise  them. 

What  we  have  termed  the  accidental  causes  of  great 
differences  in  beings  of  the  same  nature,  do  not  of  course 
admit  of  quite  so  simple  an  exposition.  But  it  is  not  in 
reality  more  difficult  to  prove  their  existence  and  explain  15 
their  operation.  Where  great  and  degrading  despotisms 
have  been  early  established,  either  by  the  aid  of  super- 
stition or  of  mere  force,  as  in  most  of  the  states  in  Asia, 
or  where  small  tribes  of  mixed  descent  have  been  engaged 
in  perpetual  contention  for  freedom  and  superiority,  as  in  20 
ancient  Greece  —  where  the  ambition  and  faculties  of 
individuals  have  been  chained  up  by  the  institution  of 
castes  and  indelible  separations,  as  in  India  and  Egypt, 
or  where  all  men  practise  all  occupations  and  aspire  to 
all  honours,  as  in  Germany  or  Britain  —  where  the  sole  25 
occupation  of  the  people  has  been  war,  as  in  infant 
Rome,  or  where  a  vast  pacific  population  has  been  for 
ages  inured  to  mechanical  drudgery,  as  in  China  —  it 
is  needless  to  say,  that  very  opposite  notions  of  what 
conduces  to  delight  and  amusement  must  necessarily  3° 
prevail ;  and  that  the  Taste  of  the  nation  must  be 
affected  both  by  the  sentiments  which  it  has  been 
taught  to  cultivate,  and  the  capacities  it  has  been  led 
to  unfold. 


1 62        WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP. 

The  influence  of  early  models,  however,  is  perhaps 
the  most  considerable  of  any  ;  and  may  be  easily  enough 
understood.  When  men  have  been  accustomed  to  any 
particular  kind  of  excellence,  they  naturally  become  good 
5  judges  of  it,  and  account  certain  considerable  degrees  of 
it  indispensable,  —  while  they  are  comparatively  blind  to 
the  merit  of  other  good  qualities  to  which  they  had  been 
less  habituated,  and  are  neither  offended  by  their  absence, 
nor  at  all  skilful  in  their  estimation.  Thus  those  nations 

10  who,  like  the  English  and  the  Dutch,  have  been  long 
accustomed  to  great  cleanliness  and  order  in  their  persons 
and  dwellings,  naturally  look  with  admiration  on  the 
higher  displays  of  those  qualities,  and  are  proportionately 
disgusted  by  their  neglect  ;  while  they  are  apt  to  under- 

15  value  mere  pomp  and  stateliness,  when  destitute  of  these 
recommendations  :  and  thus  also  the  Italians  and 
Sicilians,  bred  in  the  midst  of  dirt  and  magnificence, 
are  curiously  alive  to  the  beauties  of  architecture  and 
sculpture,  and  make  but  little  account  of  the  more  homely 

20  comforts  which  are  so  highly  prized  by  the  others.  In 
the  same  way,  if  a  few  of  the  first  successful  adventurers 
in  art  should  have  excelled  in  any  particular  qualities,  the 
taste  of  their  nation  will  naturally  be  moulded  on  that 
standard  —  will  regard  those  qualities  almost  exclusively 

25  as  entitled  to  admiration,  and  will  not  only  consider  the 
want  of  them  as  fatal  to  all  pretentions  to  excellence,  but 
will  unduly  despise  and  undervalue  other  qualities,  in 
themselves  not  less  valuable,  but  with  which  their  national 
models  had  not  happened  to  make  them  timeously 

3°  familiar.  If,  for  example,  the  first  great  writers  in  any 
country  should  have  distinguished  themselves  by  a 
pompous  and  severe  regularity,  and  a  certain  elaborate 
simplicity  of  design  and  execution,  it  will  naturally  follow, 
that  the  national  taste  will  not  only  become  critical  and 


WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP.       163 

rigorous  as  to  those  particulars,  but  will  be  proportionally 
deadened  to  the  merit  of  vivacity,  nature,  and  invention, 
when  combined  with  irregularity,  homeliness,  or  confusion. 
While,  if  the  great  patriarchs  of  letters  had  excelled  in 
variety  and  rapidity  of  invention,  and  boldness  and  truth  $ 
of  sentiment,  though  poured  out  with  considerable 
disorder  and  incongruity  of  manner,  those  qualities  would 
come  to  be  the  national  criterion  of  merit,  and  the 
correctness  and  decorum  of  the  other  school  be  despised, 
as  mere  recipes  for  monotony  and  tameness.  10 

These,  we  think,  are  the  plain  and  certain  effects  of 
the  peculiar  character  of  the  first  great  popular  writers  of 
all  countries.  But  still  we  do  not  conceive  that  they 
depend  altogether  on  any  thing  so  purely  accidental  as 
the  temperament  or  early  history  of  a  few  individuals.  15 
No  doubt  the  national  taste  of  France  and  of  England 
would  at  this  moment  have  been  different,  had  Shakespeare 
been  a  Frenchman,  and  Boileau  and  Racine  written  in 
English.  But  then,  we  do  not  think  that  Shakespeare 
could  have  been  a  Frenchman  ;  and  we  conceive  that  his  20 
character,  and  that  of  other  original  writers,  though  no 
doubt  to  be  considered  on  the  whole  as  casual,  must  yet 
have  been  modified  to  a  great  extent  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  countries  in  which  they  were  bred.  It  is  plain 
that  no  original  force  of  genius  could  have  enabled  25 
Shakespeare  to  write  as  he  had  done,  if  he  had  been 
born  and  bred  among  the  Chinese  or  the  Peruvians. 
Neither  do  we  think  that  he  could  have  done  so,  in  any 
other  country  but  England  —  free,  sociable,  discursive, 
reformed,  familiar  England  —  whose  motley  and  mingling  30 
population  not  only  presented  "  every  change  of  many- 
coloured  life  "  to  his  eye,  but  taught  and  permitted  every 
class,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  to  know  and  to 
estimate  the  feelings  and  the  habits  of  all  the  others  —  and 


164        WILHELM  MEISTER'S  APPRENTICESHIP. 

thus  enabled  the  gifted  observer  not  only  to  deduce  the 
true  character  of  human  nature  from  this  infinite  variety 
of  experiments  and  examples,  but  to  speak  to  the  sense 
and  the  hearts  of  each,  with  that  truly  universal  tongue, 
5  which  every  one  feels  to  be  peculiar,  and  all  enjoy  as 
common. 

We  have  said  enough,  however,  or  rather  too  much,  on 
these  general  views  of  the  subject  —  which  in  truth  is 
sufficiently  clear  in  those  extreme  cases,  where  the 

10  contrariety  is  great  and  universal,  and  is  only  perplexing 
when  there  is  a  pretty  general  conformity  both  in  the 
causes  which  influence  taste  and  in  the  results.  Thus, 
we  are  not  at  all  surprised  to  find  the  taste  of  the 
Japanese  or  the  Iroquois  very  different  from  our  own  — 

15  and  have  no  difficulty  in  both  admitting  that  our  human 
nature  and  human  capacities  are  substantially  the  same, 
and  in  referring  this  discrepancy  to  the  contrast  that 
exists  in  the  whole  state  of  society,  and  the  knowledge, 
and  the  opposite  qualities  of  the  objects  to  which  we 

20  have  been  respectively  accustomed  to  give  our  admiration. 
That  nations  living  in  times  or  places  altogether  remote, 
should  disagree  in  taste,  as  in  every  thing  else,  seems  to 
us  quite  natural.  They  are  only  the  nearer  cases  that 
puzzle.  And,  that  great  European  countries,  peopled  by 

25  the  same  mixed  races,  educated  in  the  admiration  of  the 

same  classical  models  —  venerating  the  same  remains  of 

antiquity  —  engaged  substantially  in  the  same  occupations 

—  communicating  every  day,   on  business,   letters,  and 

society —  bound  up  in  short  in  one  great  commonwealth, 

30  as  against  the  inferior  and  barbarous  parts  of  the 
world,  should  yet  differ  so  widely  —  not  only  as  to  the 
comparative  excellence  of  their  respective  productions, 
but  as  to  the  constituents  of  excellence  in  all  works  of 
genius  or  skill,  does  indeed  sound  like  a  paradox,  the 


WILHELM  MEISTEPS  APPRENTICESHIP.       165 

solution  of  which  every  one  may  not  be  able  to  deduce 
from  the  preceding  observations. 

The   great   practical    equation   on  which  we   in   this 
country  have  been  hitherto   most  frequently  employed, 
has  been  between  our  own   standard  of  taste  and  that    5 
which  is  recognized  among  our  neighbours  of  France  :  — 
And  certainly,  though' feelings  of  rivalry  have  somewhat 
aggravated  its  apparent,  beyond  its  real  amount,  there  is 
a  great  and  substantial  difference  to  be  accounted  for,  — 
in  the  way  we  have  suggested  —  or  in  some  other  way.  10 
Stating  that  difference  as  generally  as  possible,  we  would 
say,  that  the  French,  compared  with  ourselves,  are  more 
sensitive  to  faults,  and  less  transported  with  beauties  — 
more  enamoured  of  art,  and  less  indulgent  to  nature  — 
more  charmed  with  overcoming  difficulties,  than  with  that  15 
power  which  makes  us  unconscious  of  their  existence  — 
more  averse  to  strong  emotions,  or  at  least  less  covetous 
of   them  in  their  intensity  —  more  students  of  taste,  in 
short,  than  adorers  of  genius  —  and  far  more  disposed 
than  any  other  people,  except  perhaps  the   Chinese,  to  20 
circumscribe  the  rules  of  taste  to  such  as  they  themselves 
have  been  able  to  practise,  and  to  limit  the   legitimate 
empire  of  genius  to  the  provinces  they  have   explored. 
There    has   been    a   good    deal    of    discussion    of    late 
years,  in  the  face  of  literary  Europe,  on  these  debatable  25 
grounds  ;    and  we  cannot  but  think  that  the  result  has 
been  favourable,  on  the  whole,  to  the  English,  and  that 
the  French  have  been  compelled  to  recede  considerably 
from  many  of  their  exclusive  pretensions  —  a  result  which 
we  are  inclined  to  ascribe,  less  to  the  arguments  of  our  30 
native    champions,  than   to  those   circumstances  in   the 
recent    history   of   Europe,    which    have    compelled   our 
ingenious  neighbours  to  mingle  more  than  they  had  ever 
done  before  with  the  surrounding  nations  —  and  thus  to 


1 66        WILHELM  MEISTEK'S  APPRENTICESHIP. 

become  better  acquainted  with  the  diversified  forms  which 
genius  and  talent  may  assume. 

But  while  we  are  thus  fairly  in  the  way  of  settling  our 
differences  with  France,  we  are  little  more  than  beginning 
5  them,  we  fear,  with  Germany  ;  and  the  perusal  of  the 
extraordinary  volumes  before  us,  which  has  suggested  all 
the  preceding  reflections,  has  given  us,  at  the  same  time, 
an  impression  of  such  radical,  and  apparently  irrecon- 
cilable disagreement  as  to  principles,  as  we  can  scarcely 

10  hope  either  to  remove  by  our  reasonings,  or  even  very 
satisfactorily  to  account  for  by  our  suggestions. 

This  is  allowed,  by  the  general  consent  of  all 
Germany,  to  be  the  very  greatest  work  of  their  very 
greatest  writer.  The  most  original,  the  most  varied  and 

15  inventive,  —  the  most  characteristic,  in  short,  of  the 
author,  and  of  his  country.  We  receive  it  as  such 
accordingly,  with  implicit  faith  and  suitable  respect  ;  and 
have  perused  it  in  consequence  with  very  great  attention 
and  no  common  curiosity.  We  have  perused  it,  indeed, 

20  only  in  the  translation  of  which  we  have  prefixed  the 
title  :  But  it  is  a  translation  by  a  professed  admirer  ; 
and  by  one  who  is  proved  by  his  Preface  to  be  a  person 
of  talents,  and  by  every  part  of  the  work  to  be  no 
ordinary  master,  at  least  of  one  of  the  languages  with 

25  which  he  has  to  deal.  We  need  scarcely  say,  that  we 
profess  to  judge  of  the  work  only  according  to  our  own 
principles  of  judgment  and  habits  of  feeling  ;  and, 
meaning  nothing  less  than  to  dictate  to  the  readers  or 
the  critics  of  Germany  what  they  should  think  of  their 

30  favourite  authors,  propose  only  to  let  them  know,  in 
all  plainness  and  modesty,  what  we,  and  we  really  believe 
most  of  our  countrymen,  actually  think  of  this  chef-d' ceuvre 
of  Teutonic  genius. 

We  must  say,  then,  at  once,  that  we  cannot  enter  into 


WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP.       167 

the  spirit  of  this  German  idolatry  ;  nor  at  all  comprehend 
upon  what  grounds  the  work  before  us  could  ever  be 
considered   as  an    admirable,  or   even    a   commendable 
performance.       To    us    it    certainly   appears,    after    the 
most  deliberate   consideration,  to  be  eminently  absurd,     5 
puerile,  incongruous,  vulgar,  and  affected  ;  —  and,  though 
redeemed  by  considerable  powers  of  invention,  and  some 
traits  of  vivacity,  to  be  so  far  from  perfection,  as  to  be, 
almost   from    beginning   to    end,    one    flagrant    offence 
against  every  principle   of  taste,  and  every  just  rule  of  10 
composition.     Though  indicating,  in  many  places,  a  mind 
capable  both  of  acute  and  profound  reflection,  it  is  full 
of  mere  silliness  and  childish  affectation  ;  —  and  though 
evidently  the  work  of  one  who  had  seen  and  observed 
much,  it  is  throughout  altogether  unnatural,  and  not  so  15 
properly  improbable,  as  affectedly  fantastic  and  absurd  — 
kept,  as  it  were,  studiously  aloof  from  general  or  ordinary 
nature — never  once  bringing  us  into  contact  with  real 
life  or  genuine  character  —  and,  where  not  occupied  with 
the   professional    squabbles,  paltry  jargon,  and   scenical  20 
profligacy  of    strolling  players,  tumblers,  and  mummers 
(which  may  be  said  to  form  its  staple),  is  conversant  only 
with  incomprehensible  mystics  and  vulgar  men  of  whim, 
with  whom,  if  it  were  at  all  possible  to  understand  them, 
it  would  be  a  baseness  to  be  acquainted.     Every  thing,  25 
and  every  body  we  meet  with,  is  a  riddle  and  an  oddity ; 
and  though  the  tissue  of  the  story  is  sufficiently  coarse, 
and  the  manners  and  sentiments  infected  with  a  strong 
tinge  of  vulgarity,  it  is  all  kept  in  the  air,  like  a  piece  of 
machinery  at  the  minor  theatres,  and  never  allowed  to  30 
touch   the   solid   ground,  or   to    give    an    impression    of 
reality,  by  the  disclosure  of  known  or  living  features.     In 
the  midst  of  all  this,  however,  there  are,  every  now  and 
then,  outbreakings  of  a  fine  speculation,  and  gleams  of  a 


1 68        WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP. 

warm  and  sprightly  imagination  —  an  occasional  wild  and 
exotic  glow  of  fancy  and  poetry — a  vigorous  heaping 
up  of  incidents,  and  touches  of  bright  and  powerful 
description. 

5  It  is  not  very  easy  certainly  to  account  for  these 
incongruities,  or  to  suggest  an  intelligible  theory  for  so 
strange  a  practice.  But  in  so  far  as  we  can  guess,  these 
peculiarities  of  German  taste  are  to  be  referred,  in  part, 
to  the  comparative  newness  of  original  composition 

10  among  that  ingenious  people,  and  to  the  state  of  European 
literature  when  they  first  ventured  on  the  experiment  — 
and  in  part  to  the  state  of  society  in  that  great  country 
itself,  and   the   comparatively  humble   condition   of   the 
greater  part  of  those  who  write,  or  to  whom  writing  is 

15  there  addressed. 

The  Germans,  though  undoubtedly  an  imaginative 
and  even  enthusiastic  race,  had  neglected  their  native 
literature  for  two  hundred  years  —  and  were  'chiefly 
known  for  their  learning  and  industry.  They  wrote  huge 

20  Latin  treatises  on  Law  and  Theology — and  put  forth 
bulky  editions  and  great  tomes  of  annotations  on  the 
classics.  At  last,  however,  they  grew  tired  of  being 
respected  as  the  learned  drudges  of  Europe,  and 
reproached  with  their  consonants  and  commentators  ;  and 

25  determined,  about  fifty  years  ago,  to  show  what  metal 
they  were  made  of,  and  to  give  the  wprld  a  taste  of  their 
quality,  as  men  of  genius  and  invention.  In  this  attempt 
the  first  thing  to  be  effected  was  at  all  events  to  avoid  the 
imputation  of  being  scholastic  imitators  of  the  classics. 

30  That  would  have  smelt  too  much,  they  thought,  of  the 
old  shop  ;  and  in  order  to  prove  their  claims  to  originality, 
it  was  necessary  to  go  a  little  into  the  opposite  extreme, — 
to  venture  on  something  decidedly  modern,  and  to  show 
at  once  their  independence  on  their  old  masters,  and 


WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP.       169 

their  superiority  to  the  pedantic  rules  of  antiquity.  With 
this  view  some  of  them  betook  themselves  to  the  French 
models  —  set  seriously  to  study  how  to  be  gay —  apprendre 
a  etre  vif — and  composed  a  variety  of  petites  pieces  and 
novels  of  polite  gallantry,  in  a  style  —  of  which  we  shall  5 
at  present  say  nothing.  This  manner,  however,  ran  too 
much  counter  to  the  general  character  of  the  nation  to 
be  very  much  followed  —  and  undoubtedly  the  greater 
and  better  part  of  their  writers  turned  rather  to  us,  for 
hints  and  lessons  to  guide  them  in  their  ambitious  career.  10 
There  was  a  greater  original  affinity  in  the  temper  and 
genius  of  the  two  nations  —  and,  in  addition  to  that 
consideration,  our  great  authors  were  indisputably  at  once 
more  original  and  less  classical  than  those  of  France. 
England,  however,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  could  furnish  15 
abundance  of  bad  as  well  as  of  good  models  —  and  even 
the  best  were  perilous  enough  for  rash  imitators.  As 
it  happened,  however,  the  worst  were  most  generally 
selected  —  and  the  worst  parts  of  the  good.  Shakespeare 
was  admired  — but  more  for  his  flights  of  fancy,  his  daring  20 
improprieties,  his  trespasses  on  the  borders  of  absurdity, 
than  for  the  infinite  sagacity  and  rectifying  good  sense 
by  which  he  redeemed  those  extravagancies,  or  even  the 
profound  tenderness  and  simple  pathos  which  alternated 
with  the  lofty  soaring  or  dazzling  imagery  of  his  style.  25 
Altogether,  however,  Shakespeare  was  beyond  their 
rivalry ;  and  although  Schiller  has  dared,  and  not  inglori- 
ously,  to  emulate  his  miracles,  it  was  plainly  to  other 
merits  and  other  rivalries  that  the  body  of  his  ingenious 
countrymen  aspired.  The  ostentatious  absurdity  —  the  30 
affected  oddity  —  the  pert  familiarity  —  the  broken  style, 
and  exaggerated  sentiment  of  Tristram  Shandy  —  the 
mawkish  morality,  dawdling  details,  and  interminable 
agonies  of  Richardson  —  the  vulgar  adventures,  and 


17°       WILHELM  MINISTER'S  APPRENTICESHIP. 

homely,  though,  at  the  same  time,  fantastical  speculations 
of  John  Buncle  and  others  of  his  forgotten  class,  found 
far  more  favour  in  their  eyes.  They  were  original, 
startling,  unclassical,  and  puzzling.  They  excited  curiosity 
5  by  not  being  altogether  intelligible  —  effectually  excluded 
monotony  by  the  rapidity  and  violence  of  their  transitions, 
and  promised  to  rouse  the  most  torpid  sensibility,  by  the 
violence  and  perseverance  with  which  they  thundered  at 
the  heart.  They  were  the  very  things,  in  short,  which 

10  the  German  originals  were  in  search  of  ;  —  and  they  were 
not  slow,  therefore,  in  adopting  and  improving  on  them. 
In  order  to  make  them  thoroughly  their  own,  they  had 
only  to  exaggerate  their  peculiarities  —  to  mix  up  with 
them  a  certain  allowance  of  their  old  visionary  philosophy, 

15  misty  metaphysics,  and  superstitious  visions  —  and  to 
introduce  a  few  crazy  sententious  theorists,  to  sprinkle 
over  the  whole  a  seasoning  of  rash  speculation  on  morality 
and  the  fine  arts. 

The  style  was  also  to  be  relieved  by  a  variety  of  odd 

20  comparisons  and  unaccountable  similes  —  borrowed,  for 
the  most  part,  from  low  and  revolting  objects,  and  all  the 
better  if  they  did  not  exactly  fit  the  subject,  or  even 
introduced  new  perplexity  into  that  which  they  professed 
to  illustrate. 

25  This  goes  far,  we  think,  to  explain  the  absurdity, 
incongruity,  and  affectation  of  the  works  of  which  we  are 
speaking.  But  there  is  yet  another  distinguishing  quality 
for  which  we  have  not  accounted  —  and  that  is  a  peculiar 
kind  of  vulgarity  which  pervades  all  their  varieties,  and 

30  constitutes,  perhaps,  their  most  repulsive  characteristic. 
We  do  not  know  very  well  how  to  describe  this  unfortu- 
nate peculiarity,  except  by  saying  that  it  is  the  vulgarity 
of  pacific,  comfortable  burghers,  occupied  with  stuffing, 
cooking,  and  providing  for  their  coarse  personal  accommo- 


WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPKEiVTICESHIP.       171 

dations.  There  certainly  never  were  any  men  of  genius 
who  condescended  to  attend  so  minutely  to  the  non- 
naturals  of  their  heroes  and  heroines  as  the  novelists  of 
modern  Germany.  Their  works  smell,  as  it  were,  of 
groceries  —  of  brown  papers  filled  with  greasy  cakes  and  5 
slices  of  bacon,  —  and  fryings  in  frowsy  back  parlours. 
All  the  interesting  recollections  of  childhood  turn  on 
remembered  tidbits  and  plunderings  of  savoury  store- 
rooms. In  the  midst  of  their  most  passionate  scenes 
there  is  always  a  serious  and  affectionate  notice  of  10 
the  substantial  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking.  The 
raptures  of  a  tete-a-tete  are  not  complete  without  a  bottle 
of  nice  wine  and  a  "  trim  collation."  Their  very  sages 
deliver  their  oracles  over  a  glass  of  punch  ;  and  the 
enchanted  lover  finds  new  apologies  for  his  idolatry  in  15 
taking  a  survey  of  his  mistress's  "combs,  soap,  and 
towels,  with  the  traces  of  their  use."  These  baser 
necessities  of  our  nature,  in  short,  which  all  other  writers 
who  have  aimed  at  raising  the  imagination  or  touching 
the  heart  have  kept  studiously  out  of  view,  are  osten-  20 
tatiously  brought  forward,  and  fondly  dwelt  on  by  the 
pathetic  authors  of  Germany. 

We  really  cannot  well  account  for  this  extraordinary 
taste.  But  we  suspect  it  is  owing  to  the  importance  that 
is  really  attached  to  those  solid  comforts  and  supplies  of  25 
necessaries,  by  the  greater  part  of  the  readers  and  writers 
of  that  country.  Though  there  is  a  great  deal  of  freedom 
in  Germany,  it  operates  less  by  raising  the  mass  of  the 
people  to  a  potential  equality  with  the  nobles,  than  by 
securing  to  them  their  inferior  and  plebeian  privileges  ;  30 
and  consists  rather  in  the  immunities  of  their  incor- 
porated tradesmen,  which  may  enable  them  to  become 
rich  as  such,  than  in  any  general  participation  of  national 
rights,  by  which  they  may  aspire  to  dignity  and  elegance, 


I72        WILHELM  MEISTEFS  APPRENTICESHIP. 

as  well  as  opulence  and  comfort.  Now,  the  writers,  as 
well  as  the  readers  in  that  country,  belong  almost  entirely 
to  the  plebeian  and  vulgar  class.  Their  learned  men  are 
almost  all  wofully  poor  and  dependent ;  and  the  com- 
5  fortable  burghers  who  buy  entertaining  books  by  the 
thousand  at  the  Frankfort  fair,  probably  agree  with 
their  authors  in  nothing  so  much  as  the  value  they 
set  on  those  homely  comforts  to  which  their  ambition 
is  mutually  limited  by  their  condition  ;  and  enter  into  no 
10  part  of  them  so  heartily  as  those  which  set  forth  their 
paramount  and  continual  importance. 

It  is  time,  however,  that  we  should  proceed  to  give 
some  more  particular  account  of  the  work  which  has 
given  occasion  to  all  these  observations. 


MEMOIRS  OF  ZEHIR-ED-DIN  MUHAMMED 
BABER,  EMPEROR  OE  HINDUSTAN. 


Written  by  himself,  in  the  Jaghatai  Turki,  and  translated,  partly  by  the 
late  John  Ley  den,  Esq.,  M.D.,  partly  by  William  Erskine,  Esq. 


THIS  is  a  very  curious,  and  admirably  edited  work. 
But  the  strongest  impression  which  the  perusal  of  it  has 
left  on  our  minds  is  the  boundlessness  of  authentic 
history  ;  and,  if  we  might  venture  to  say  it,  the  useless- 
ness  of  all  history  which  does  not  relate  to  our  own  5 
fraternity  of  nations,  or  even  bear,  in  some  way  or  other, 
on  our  own  present  or  future  condition. 

We  have  here  a  distinct  and  faithful  account  of  some 
hundreds  of  battles,  sieges  and  great  military  expeditions, 
and  a  character  of  a  prodigious  number  of  eminent  indi-  10 
viduals,  —  men  famous  in  their  day,  over  wide  regions, 
for   genius    or   fortune  —  poets,    conquerers,    martyrs  — 
founders  of  cities  and  dynasties  —  authors  of  immortal 
works  —  ravagers  of  vast  districts  abounding  in  wealth 
and    population.      Of    all    these   great   personages    and  15 
events,  nobody  in  Europe,  if  we  except  a  score  or  two 
of  studious  Orientalists,  has  ever  heard  before  ;    and  it 
would  not,  we  imagine,  be  very  easy  to  show  that  we  are 
any  better  for    hearing   of   them   now.     A  few   curious     > 
traits,  that  happened  to  be  strikingly  in  contrast  with  our  2c 
own  manners  and  habits,  may  remain  on  the  memory  of 
a  reflecting  reader  —  with  a  general  confused  recollection 
of  the  dark  and  gorgeous  phantasmagoria.     But  no  one, 


174  MEMOIRS   OF  BABEK. 

we  may  fairly  say,  will  think  it  worth  while  to  digest  or 
develope  the  details  of  the  history  ;  or  be  at  the  pains  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  leading  individuals,  and  fix 
in  his  memory  the  series  and  connection  of  events.  Yet 
5  the  effusion  of  human  blood  was  as  copious  —  the  display 
of  talent  and  courage  as  imposing  —  the  perversion  of 
high  moral  qualities,  and  the  waste  of  the  means  of 
enjoyment  as  unsparing,  as  in  other  long-past  battles 
and  intrigues  and  revolutions,  over  the  details  of  which 

10  we  still  pore  with  the  most  unwearied  attention  ;  and  to 
verify  the  dates  or  minute  circumstances  of  which,  is  still 
regarded  as  a  great  exploit  in  historical  research,  and 
among  the  noblest  employments  of  human  learning  and 
sagacity. 

15  It  is  not  perhaps  v^ry  easy  to  account  for  the  eager- 
ness with  which  we  still  follow  the  fortunes  of  Miltiades, 
Alexander,  or  Caesar  —  of  the  Bruce  and  the  Black  Prince, 
and  the  interest  which  yet  belongs  to  thj  fields  of  Mara- 
thon and  Pharsalia,  of  Crecy  and  Bannockburn,  compared 

20  with  the  indifference,  or  rather  reluctance,  with  which  we 
listen  to  the  details  of  Asiatic  warfare  —  the  conquests 
that  transferred  to  the  Moguls  the  vast  sovereignties  of 
India,  or  raised  a  dynasty  of  Manchew  Tartars  to  the 
Celestial  Empire  of  China.  It  will  not  do  to  say,  that 

25  we  want  something  nobler  in  character,  and  more  exalted 
in  intellect,  than  is  to  be  met  with  among  those  murderous 
Orientals  —  that  there  is  nothing  to  interest  in  the  con- 
tentions of  mere  force  and  violence  ;  and  that  it  requires 
no  very  fine-drawn  reasoning  to  explain  why  we  should 
3  turn  with  disgust  from  the  story,  if  it  had  been  preserved, 
of  the  savage  affrays  which  have  drenched  the  sands  of 
Africa  or  the  rocks  of  New  Zealand  —  through  long 
generations  of  murder  —  with  the  blood  of  their  brutish 
population.  This  may  be  true  enough  of  Madagascar 


MEMOIRS  OF  BABER.  175 

or  Dahomy  ;  but  it  does  not  apply  to  the  case  before  us. 
The  nations  of  Asia  generally — at  least  those  composing 
its  great  states  —  were  undoubtedly  more  polished  than 
those  of  Europe,  during  all  the  period  that  preceded  their 
recent  connexion.  Their  warriors  were  as  brave  in  the  5 
field,  their  statesmen  more  subtle  and  politic  in  the 
cabinet :  In  the  arts  of  luxury,  and  all  the  elegancies  of 
civil  life,  they  were  immeasurably  superior  ;  in  ingenuity 
of  speculation  —  in  literature  —  in  social  politeness  —  the 
comparison  is  still  in  their  favour.  10 

It  has  often  occurred  to  us,  indeed,  to  consider  what 
the  effect  would  have  been  on  the  fate  and  fortunes  of 
the  world,  if,  in  the  fourteenth,  or  fifteenth  century, 
when  the  germs  of  their  present  civilisation  were  first 
disclosed,  the  nations  of  Europe  had  been  introduced  15 
to  an  intimate  and  friendly  acquaintance  with  the  great 
polished  communities  of  the  East,  and  had  been  thus  led 
to  take  them  for  their  masters  in  intellectual  cultivation, 
and  their  models  in  all  the  higher  pursuits  of  genius, 
polity,  and  art.  The  difference  in  our  social  and  moral  20 
condition,  it  would  not  perhaps  be  easy  to  estimate  : 
But  one  result,  we  conceive,  would  unquestionably  have 
been,  to  make  us  take  the  same  deep  interest  in  their 
ancient  story,  which  we  now  feel,  for  similar  reasons,  in 
that  of  the  sterner  barbarians  of  early  Rome,  or  the  more  25 
imaginative  clans  and  colonies  of  immortal  Greece.  The 
experiment,  however,  though  there  seemed  oftener  than 
once  to  be  some  openings  for  it,  was  not  made.  Our 
crusading  ancestors  were  too  rude  themselves  to  estimate 
or  to  feel  the  value  of  the  oriental  refinement  which  30 
presented  itself  to  their  passing  gaze,  and  too  entirely 
occupied  with  war  and  bigotry,  to  reflect  on  its  causes  or 
effects ;  and  the  first  naval  adventurers  who  opened  up 
India  to  our  commerce,  were  both  too  few  and  too  far  off 


176  MEMOIRS   OF  BABER. 

to  communicate  to  their  brethren  at  home  any  taste 
for  the  splendours  which  might  have  excited  their  own 
admiration.  By  the  time  that  our  intercourse  with  those 
regions  was  enlarged,  our  own  career  of  improvement  had 
5  been  prosperously  begun  ;  and  our  superiority  in  the  art, 
or  at  least  the  discipline  of  war,  having  given  us  a  signal 
advantage  in  the  conflicts  to  which  that  extending  inter- 
course immediately  led,  naturally  increased  the  aversion 
and  disdain  with  which  almost  all  races  of  men  are  apt 

10  to  regard  strangers  to  their  blood  and  dissenters  from 
their  creed.  Since  that  time  the  genius  of  Europe  has 
been  steadily  progressive,  whilst  that  of  Asia  has  been  at 
least  stationary,  and  most  probably  retrograde  ;  and  the 
descendants  of  the  feudal  and  predatory  warriors  of  the 

15  West  have  at  last  attained  a  decided  predominancy  over 
those  of  their  elder  brothers  in  the  East ;  to  whom,  at 
that  period,  they  were  unquestionably  inferior  in  elegance 
and  ingenuity,  and  whose  hostilities  were  then  conducted 
on  the  same  system  with  our  own.  They,  in  short,  have 

20  remained  nearly  where  they  were  ;  while  we,  beginning 
with  the  improvement  of  our  governments  and  military 
discipline,  have  gradually  outstripped  them  in  all  the 
lesser  and  more  ornamental  attainments  in  which  they 
originally  excelled. 

25  This  extraordinary  fact  of  the  stationary  or  degenerate 
condition  of  the  two  oldest  and  greatest  families  of  man- 
kind—  those  of  Asia  and  Africa,  has  always  appeared 
to  us  a  sad  obstacle  in  the  way  of  those  who  believe 
in  the  general  progress  of  the  race,  and  its  constant 

30  advancement  towards  a  state  of  perfection.  Two  or 
three  thousand  years  ago,  those  vast  communities  were 
certainly  in  a  happier  and  more  prosperous  state  than 
they  are  now  ;  and  in  many  of  them  we  know  that  their 
most  powerful  and  flourishing  societies  have  been  cor- 


MEMOIRS   OF  BABER.  177 

rupted  and  dissolved,  not  by  any  accidental  or  intrinsic 
disaster,  like  foreign  conquest,  pestilence,  or  elemental 
devastation,  but  by  what  appeared  to  be  the  natural 
consequences  of  that  very  greatness  and  refinement 
which  had  marked  and  rewarded  their  earlier  exertions.  5 
In  Europe,  hitherto,  the  case  has  certainly  been  different : 
For  though  darkness  did  fall  upon  its  nations  also,  after 
the  lights  of  Roman  civilisation  were  extinguished,  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  they  did  not  burn  out  of  them- 
selves, but  were  trampled  down  by  hosts  of  invading  10 
barbarians,  and  that  they  blazed  out  anew,  with  increased 
splendour  and  power,  when  the  dulness  of  that  superin- 
cumbent mass  was  at  length  vivified  by  their  contact,  and 
animated  by  the  fermentation  of  that  leaven  which  had 
all  along  been  secretly  working  in  its  recesses.  In  15 
Europe  certainly  there  has  been  a  progress  :  And  the 
more  polished  of  its  present  inhabitants  have  not  only 
regained  the  place  which  was  held  of  old  by  their  illus- 
trious masters  of  Greece  and  Rome,  but  have  plainly 
outgone  them  in  the  most  substantial  and  exalted  of  20 
their  improvements.  Far  more  humane  and  refined 
than  the  Romans  —  far  less  giddy  and  turbulent  and 
treacherous  than  the  Greeks,  they  have  given  a  security 
to  life  and  property  that  was  unknown  to  the  earlier  ages 
of  tha  world  —  exalted  the  arts  of  peace  to  a  dignity  25 
with  which  they  were  never  before  invested  ;  and,  by  the 
abolition  of  domestic  servitude,  for  the  first  time  extended 
to  the  bulk  of  the  population  those  higher  capacities  and 
enjoyments  which  were  formerly  engrossed  by  a  few.  By 
the  invention  of  printing,  they  have  made  all  knowledge,  30 
not  only  accessible,  but  imperishable  ;  and  by  their  im- 
provements in  the  art  of  war,  have  effectually  secured 
themselves  against  the  overwhelming  calamity  of  barbar- 
ous invasion  —  the  risk  of  subjugation  by  mere  numerical 


178  MEMOIRS   OF  BABER. 

or  animal  force  :  Whilst  the  alternations  of  conquest  and 
defeat  amongst  civilised  communities,  who  alone  can  now 
be  formidable  to  each  other,  though  productive  of  great 
local  and  temporary  evils,  may  be  regarded  on  the  whole 
5  as  one  of  the  means  of  promoting  and  equalising  the 
general  civilisation.  Rome  polished  and  enlightened  all 
the  barbarous  nations  she  subdued  —  and  was  herself 
polished  and  enlightened  by  her  conquest  of  elegant 
Greece.  If  the  European  parts  of  Russia  had  been 

10  subjected  to  the  dominion  of  France,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  loss  of  national  independence  would  have 
been  compensated  by  rapid  advances  both  in  liberality 
and  refinement ;  and  if,  by  a  still  more  disastrous,  though 
less  improbable  contingency,  the  Moscovite  hordes  were 

15  ever  to  overrun  the  fair  countries  to  the  south-west  of 
them,  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  invaders  would 
speedily  be  softened  and  informed  by  the  union  ;  and 
be  infected  more  certainly  than  by  any  other  sort  of 
contact,  with  the  arts  and  knowledge  of  the  vanquished. 

20  All  these  great  advantages,  however  —  this  apparently 
irrepressible  impulse  to  improvement  —  this  security 
against  backsliding  and  decay,  seems  peculiar  to  Europe,1 
and  not  capable  of  being  communicated,  even  by  her,  to 
the  most  docile  races  of  the  other  quarters  of  the  world  : 

25  and  it  is  really  extremely  difficult  to  explain,  upon  what 
are  called  philosophical  principles,  the  causes  of  this 
superiority.  We  should  be  very  glad  to  ascribe  it  to  our 

1  When  we  speak  of  Europe,  it  will  be  understood  that  we  speak, 
not  of  the  land,  but  of  the  people  —  and  include,  therefore,  all  the 
settlements  and  colonies  of  that  favoured  race,  in  whatever  quarter 
of  the  globe  they  may  now  be  established.  Some  situations  seem 
more,  and  some  less,  favourable  to  the  preservation  of  the  original 
character.  The  Spaniards  certainly  degenerated  in  Peru  —  and  the 
Dutch  perhaps  in  Batavia  ;  —  but  the  English  remain,  we  trust 
unimpaired  in  America. 


MEMOIRS  OF  BABER.  i?9 

greater  political  Freedom  :  —  and  no  doubt,  as  a  secondary 
cause,  this  is  among  the  most  powerful  ;    as  it  is  to   the 
maintenance  of  that  freedom  that  we  are  indebted  for  the 
self-estimation,  the  feeling  of  honour,  the  general  equity 
of  the  laws,  and  the  substantial  security  both  from  sudden    5 
revolution  and  from  capricious  oppression,  which  distin- 
guish our  portion   of  the  globe.     But  we   cannot  bring 
ourselves  to  regard  this  freedom  as  a  mere  accident  in 
our  history,  that  is  not  itself  to  be  accounted  for,  as  well 
as   its    consequences  :    And    when    it    is    said    that    our  10 
greater  stability  and  prosperity  is  owing  to  our  greater 
freedom,   we   are  immediately  tempted  to  ask,  by  what 
that  freedom   has   itself  been  produced  ?     In   the   same 
way  we  might  ascribe  the  superior  mildness  and  humanity 
of  our   manners,   the   abated  ferocity  of  our  wars,  and  15 
generally  our  respect  for  human  life,  to  the  influence  of 
a  Religion  which  teaches  that  all  men  are  equal  in  the 
sight  of  God,  and   inculcates  peace   and   charity  as  the 
first  of  our  duties.     But,  besides  the  startling  contrast 
between    the    profligacy,    treachery,    and    cruelty  of  the  20 
Eastern  Empire  after  its  conversion  to  the  true  faith,  and 
the  simple  and  heroic  virtues  of  the  heathen  republic,  it 
would  still  occur  to  inquire,  how  it  has  happened  that  the 
nations  of  European  descent  have  alone  embraced  the 
sublime  truths,  and  adopted  into  their  practice  the  mild  25 
precepts,   of  Christianity,  while  the  people   of  the  East 
have  uniformly  rejected  and  disclaimed  them,  as  alien  to 
their  character  and  habits  —  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of 
the   apostles,  fathers,  and  martyrs,  in  the  primitive  and 
most    effective    periods    of    their   preaching  ?     How,    in  30 
short,  it  has  happened  that  the  sensual  and  sanguinary 
creed  of  Mahomet  has  superseded  the   pure  and  pacific 
doctrines  of  Christianity  in  most  of  those  very  regions 
where    it   was    first    revealed    to    mankind,    and    first 


180  MEMOIRS   OF  BABER. 

established  by  the  greatest  of  existing  governments? 
The  Christian  revelation  is  no  doubt  the  most  precious 
of  all  Heaven's  gifts  to  the  benighted  world.  But  it  is 
plain,  that  there  was  a  greater  aptitude  to  embrace  and 
5  to  profit  by  it  in  the  European  than  in  the  Asiatic  race. 
A  free  government,  in  like  manner,  is  unquestionably  the 
most  valuable  of  all  human  inventions  —  the  great 
safeguard  of  all  other  temporal  blessings,  and  the  main- 
spring of  all  intellectual  and  moral  improvement  :  —  But 

10  such  a  government  is  not  the  result  of  a  lucky  thought 
or  happy  casualty  ;  and  could  only  be  established  among 
men  who  had  previously  learned  both  to  relish  the  benefits 
it  secures,  and  to  understand  the  connexion  between  the 
means  it  employs  and  the  ends  at  which  it  aims. 

15  We  come  then,  though  a  little  reluctantly,  to  the 
conclusion,  that  there  is  a  natural  and  inherent  difference 
in  the  character  and  temperament  of  the  European  and 
the  Asiatic  races  —  consisting,  perhaps,  chiefly  in  a 
superior  capacity  of  patient  and  persevering  thought  in 

20  the  former  —  and  displaying  itself,  for  the  most  part,  in 
a  more  sober  and  robust  understanding,  and  a  more 
reasonable,  principled,  and  inflexible  morality.  It  is 
this  which  has  led  us,  at  once  to  temper  our  political 
institutions  with  prospective  checks  and  suspicious  provi- 

25  sions  against  abuses,  and,  in  our  different  orders  and 
degrees,  to  submit  without  impatience  to  those  checks 
and  restrictions  ;  —  to  extend  our  reasonings  by  repeated 
observation  and  experiment,  to  larger  and  larger  conclu- 
sions—and thus  gradually  to  discover  the  paramount 

30  importance  of  discipline  and  unity  of  purpose  in  war, 
and  of  absolute  security  to  person  and  property  in  all 
peaceful  pursuits  —  the  folly  of  all  passionate  and  vin- 
dictive assertion  of  supposed  rights  and  pretensions,  and 
the  certain  recoil  of  long-continued  injustice  on  the  heads 


MEMOIRS   OF  BABER.  181 

of  its  authors  —  the  substantial  advantages  of  honesty 
and  fair  dealing  over  the  most  ingenious  systems  of 
trickery  and  fraud  ;  —  and  even  —  though  this  is  the  last 
and  hardest,  as  well  as  the  most  precious,  of  all  the 
lessons  of  reason  and  experience  —  that  the  toleration  5 
even  of  religious  errors  is  not  only  prudent  and  merciful 
in  itself,  and  most  becoming  a  fallible  and  erring  being, 
but  is  the  surest  and  speediest  way  to  compose  religious 
differences,  and  to  extinguish  that  most  formidable 
bigotry,  and  those  most  pernicious  errors,  which  are  10 
fed  and  nourished  by  persecution.  It  is  the  want  of  this 
knowledge,  or  rather  of  the  capacity  for  attaining  it,  that 
constitutes  the  palpable  inferiority  of  the  Eastern  races  ; 
and,  in  spite  of  their  fancy,  ingenuity,  and  restless 
activity,  condems  them,  it  would  appear  irretrievably,  to  15 
vices  and  sufferings,  from  which  nations  in  a  far  ruder 
condition  are  comparatively  free.  But  we  are  wandering 
too  far  from  the  magnificent  Baber  and  his  commentators, 
—  and  must  now  leave  these  vague  and  general  specu- 
lations for  the  facts  and  details  that  lie  before  us.  20 


CHRONOLOGICAL    LIST 

OF 

ESSAYS. 


PAGE 

Apr.,  1808:  CRABBE'S  POEMS 53 

Jan.,   1809 :  RELIQUES  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 26 

July,  1809:  Miss  EDGEWORTH'S  TALES 121 

Apr.,  1810  :  CRABBE'S  BOROUGH 63 

Aug.,  1810 :  SCOTT'S  LADY  OF  THE  LAKE 37 

May,  1811  :  ALISON  ON  TASTE 149 

Aug.,  1811:  FORD'S  DRAMATIC  WORKS i 

Nov.,  1814:  WORDSWORTH'S  EXCURSION 105 

Nov.,  1814:  SCOTT'S  WAVERLEY 126 

Oct.,  1815:  WORDSWORTH'S  WHITE  DOE..... 118 

Dec.,  1816:  BYRON'S  CHILDE  HAROLD 94 

Mar.,  1817:  SCOTT'S  TALES  OF  MY  LANDLORD 132 

Aug.,  1817  :  HAZLITT'S  CHARACTERS  OF  SHAKESPEARE 21 

July,  1819:  CRABBE'S  TALES  OF  THE  HALL 77 

Aug.,  1820:  KEATS'S  ENDYMION  88 

Aug.,  1825:  GOETHE'S  WILHELM  MEISTER 159 

June,  1827:  MEMOIRS  OF  BABER 173 


DATES   IN   JEFFREY'S   LIFE. 


1773,  Oct.  23,  Jeffrey  born  in  Edinburgh. 
1781-91,  studies  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow. 
1791-92,  studies  at  Queen's  College,  Oxford. 
1792-93,  attends  law  lectures  in  Edinburgh. 
1794,  is  admitted  to  the  bar. 
1798,  visits  London  ;  returns  to  Edinburgh. 

1801,  marries  Miss  Catherine  Wilson. 

1802,  publishes  articles  in  the  Monthly  Review. 

1802,  Oct.  10,  first  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review. 

1803,  becomes  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  at  a  salary  of  ^300. 

1804,  is  making  .£240  at  the  bar. 

1805,  his  wife  dies. 

1806,  visits  London;  duel  with  Moore. 
1813-14,  visits  America  and  marries  Miss  Wilkes. 

1815,  settles  at  Craigcrook,  three  miles  north-west  of  Edinburgh. 
1829,  elected  dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Advocates,  Edinburgh. 

1829,  resigns  the  editorship  of  the  Edinburgh  Review. 

1830,  is  made  Lord  Advocate. 

1831,  is  elected  to  Parliament. 

1834,  accepts  a  judgeship  in  the  Court  of  Sessions;   becomes  Lord 

Jeffrey. 
1850,  Jan.  26,  death  of  Jeffrey. 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 


ENGLISH     REVIEWS. 


1749,  the  Monthly  Review;-  Ralph  Griffiths. 

1755,  the  first  Edinburgh  Review ;   Adam  Smith,  Blair,  Robertson. 

1756,  the  Critical  Rev ii'iv  ;   Archibald  Hamilton  and  Smollett. 
1756,  the  Literary  Magazine  or  Universal  Revie-w ;    Dr.  Johnson  a 

contributor. 

1793,  the  British  Critic  or  Theological  Review  ;   Archdeacon  Nares. 
1802,  the  Edinburgh  Review ;    Jeffrey. 
1809,  the  Quarterly  Review ;   Gifford. 
1824,  the  Westminster  Review ;    Bowring. 


NOTES. 


1  19.  Mr.  Weber.  Henry  Weber  was  a  learned  and  eccentric  Ger- 
man who  served  Scott  as  amanuensis  from  1804  to  1813.  Besides  his 
edition  of  Ford  he  published  an  edition  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  a 
collection  of  early  Metrical  Romances,  and  a  collection  of  Popular 
Romances  of  oriental  origin.  In  1813  he  went  mad  and  tried  to 
force  Scott  to  fight  a  duel  with  pistols.  He  died  in  an  asylum  in 
1818.  Cf.  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  Aug.  1804,  and  Jan.  1814.  His 
edition  of  Ford  is  now  worth  remembering  only  as  an  early  attempt 
to  make  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  better  known.  Interest  in  these 
dramatists  had  begun  to  revive  about  1800.  In  1798  appeared 
Joanna  Baillie's  Plays  on  the  Passions.  In  1802  Charles  Lamb 
published  his  John  Woodvil,  a  play  that  unmistakably  drew  its  in- 
spiration from  the  Elizabethans.  In  1805  Gifford  brought  out  his 
edition  of  Massinger.  In  1808  Lamb  published  his  Specimens  of 
English  Dramatic  Poets.  In  1811  appeared  Weber's  /w-</and  from 
that  date  on  editions  followed  rapidly.  The  tone  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review  toward  this  revival  was  ultimately  very  favorable.  Lamb's 
John  Woodvil  had  been  contemptuously  treated  and  his  Specimens 
was  passed  over  in  silence.  But  on  the  appearance  of  Weber's  Ford, 
Jeffrey  hastened  to  use  it  as  the  text  for  a  warmly  eulogistic  discourse 
on  the  Elizabethans.  In  his  essay  of  1820  on  Keats  he  takes  credit 
to  himself  for  having  swayed  the  popular  taste  toward  these  older 
models.  Doubtless  his  essays  were  influential ;  but  it  is  equally 
certain  that  the  Romantic  current  had  been  setting  with  all  its  force 
in  the  same  direction.  Coleridge  and  Hazlitt  had  lectured  and  writ- 
ten in  honor  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  vogue  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans was  owing  to  far  more  important  causes  than  even  the  ipse 
dixit  of  "  King  Jamfray."  Bulwer-Lytton  explains  the  return  to  the 
older  writers  as  an  attempt  to  justify  innovation  by  an  appeal  to  pre- 
cedent. See  his  England  and  the  English,  bk.  iv,  chap.  2. 


1 88  NOTES. 

230.  The  Reformation  .  .  .  but  one  symptom.  The  essay  on  Ford 
is  specially  interesting  because  of  Jeffrey's  frequent  use  of  the  his- 
torical method.  This  mention  of  the  Reformation  is  a  case  in  point; 
later,  he  explains  historically  the  prevalence  of  French  fashions  in 
English  literature  ;  and  still  further  on,  he  accounts  for  the  English 
love  of  Shakspere  as  owing  to  the  accommodation  of  Shakspere's 
"forms  of  excellence"  to  "the  peculiar  character,  temperament, 
and  situation,"  of  the  English  nation.  The  other  essays  of  Jeffrey 
that  best  show  his  grasp  of  the  historical  method  are  those  on 
Madame  de  StaeTs  De  la  Litterature,  etc.,  and  on  Goethe's  Wilhelm 
Meister.  Madame  de  Stael's  book  was  itself  a  plea  for  the  use  of 
the  historical  method  in  the  study  of  literature  ;  she  wished  "  to 
show  that  all  the  peculiarities  in  the  literature  of  different  ages  and 
countries  may  be  explained  by  a  reference  to  the  condition  of 
society,  and  the  political  and  religious  institutions  of  each."  The 
book  appeared  in  1812,  but  it  is  plain  from  this  essay  on  Ford  that 
Jeffrey  was  by  no  means  indebted  to  it  for  an  introduction  to  the 
historical  method. 

5  17.  Jeremy  Taylor.  Jeffrey  shared  his  admiration  for  Taylor 
with  the  Romanticists.  Coleridge's  fondness  for  Taylor  was  pro- 
verbial. Peacock  makes  Mr.  Flosky,  who  in  Nightmare  Abbey 
stands  for  Coleridge,  appear  on  one  occasion,  "  jeremitaylorically 
pathetic." 

8  20.  This  new  Continental  style.  The  pseudo-classicism  of  mod- 
ern German  criticism.  Cf.  Korting,  Grundriss  der  Geschichte  der 
englischen  Litteratur,  p.  272. 

12  16.     Akenside  and  Gray.     Jeffrey's  sneering  mention  of  Gray 
seems  hard  to  explain.     The  decorative  beauty  of  Gray's  Odes,  their 
combination  of  imaginative  splendor  with  sanity  of  mood  and  free- 
dom from  transcendental  affectations,  are  the  very  qualities  that 
might  be  expected  to  catch  Jeffrey's  applause. 

13  20.      The  mawkish  tone  of  pastoral  innocence.    Cf.  the  attacks  on 
Wordsworth  in  the  essay  on  Crabbe's  Poems,  p.  58.  and  in  the  essays 
on  the  Excursion  and  the  White  Doe,  pp.  105  and  118.     Of  these, 
the  essay  on  Crabbe  (1808)  is  the  earliest. 

15  26.  Forms  of  excellence  .  .  .  accommodated  to  their  .  .  .  char- 
acter. This  view  of  the  relativity  of  artistic  excellence  will  be  found 
more  adequately  expounded  in  the  essay  on  Madame  de  Stael's  De 
la  Litterature,  etc.  (1812)  "  With  regard  to  the  author  again,  or  artist 
of  any  other  description,  who  pretends  to  bestow  the  pleasure,  his 
object  of  course  should  be,  to  give  as  much,  and  to  as  many  persons 


NOTES.  189 

as  possible  ;  and  especially  to  those  who,  from  their  rank  and  edu- 
cation, are  likely  to  regulate  the  judgment  of  the  remainder.  It  is 
his  business,  therefore,  to  ascertain  what  does  please  the  greater  part 
of  such  persons  ;  and  to  fashion  his  productions  according  to  the 
rules  of  taste,  which  may  be  deduced  from  that  discovery.  Now,  we 
humbly  conceive  it  to  be  a  complete  and  final  justification  for  the 
whole  body  of  the  English  nation,  who  understand  French  as  well 
as  English  and  yet  prefer  Shakespeare  to  Racine,  just  to  state  mod- 
estly and  firmly,  the  fact  of  that  preference  ;  and  to  declare,  that 
their  habits  and  tempers  and  studies  and  occupations,  have  been 
such  as  to  make  them  receive  far  greater  pleasure  from  the  more 
varied  imagery  —  the  more  flexible  tone  —  the  closer  imitation  of 
nature  —  the  more  rapid  succession  of  incident,  and  vehement  bursts 
of  passion  of  the  English  author,  than  from  the  unvarying  majesty 
—  the  elaborate  argument  —  and  epigrammatic  poetry  of  the  French 
dramatist.  For  the  taste  of  the  nation  at  large,  we  really  cannot 
conceive  that  any  other  apology  can  be  necessary." 

19  M.  Shakespeare.  Cf.  Matthew  Arnold:  "Shakespeare  him- 
self, divine  as  are  his  gifts,  has  not,  of  the  marks  of  the  Master, 
this  one  :  perfect  sureness  of  hand  in  his  style.  Alone  of  English 
poets,  alone  in  English  art,  Milton  has  it."  Mixed  Essays,  ed.  1883, 
p.  200. 

21  4.  An  encomium  on  Shakespeare.  The  book  was  published 
in  1817;  2d  edition,  1818.  It  was  dedicated  to  Charles  Lamb. 
"  Hazlitt  received  £100  for  it.  The  first  edition  went  off  in  six 
weeks;  the  sale  of  the  second  was  spoilt,  as  he  thought,  by  an  attack 
in  the  '  Quarterly  Review.'  For  this  and  a  later  assault  Hazlitt 
revenged  himself  by  a  vigorous  letter  to  William  Gifford."  Diet,  of 
Nat.  Biog.  §  Hazlitt. 

21  14.     Our  own  admiration.     Jeffrey  takes  too   much  credit  for 
his   admiration    of    Shakspere  ;    even   the  eighteenth    century   was 
alive    to    Shakspere's   merits.      For   a   list   of   dates    marking    the 
course    of   the    Shakspere   revival   in    the    eighteenth    century,  see 
Kbrting,  Grnndriss  der  Geschichte  der  englischen  Litteratur,  p.  313. 
Cf.  Hettner,  Geschichte  der  englischen  Litteratur,  p.  529. 

22  6.     A  fine  sense  of  the  beauties  of  the  author.     In  this  work  of 
Hazlitt's,  Jeffrey  has  chanced  on  a  genuine  piece  of  impressionistic 
criticism  and  he  treats  it  on  the  whole  very  sympathetically.     He 
himself  never  loiters  over  a  poem,  yields  luxuriously  to  the  mood  it 
induces,  and  fashions  a  new  bit  of  imaginative  literature  out  of  the 
dreams  it  suggests.     He  is  much  too  responsible  a  person  to  practice 


19°  NOTES. 

such  intellectual  vagrancy,  but  he  looks  on  it  in  others  tolerantly 
and  even  sympathetically. 

24  fl.  Relative  to  mental  emotion.  Cf.  Selections,  p.  91,  1.  27, 
p.  150,  1.  1 8,  and  p.  152. 

262.  Stephen  Duck  (b.  1705,  d.  1756).  He  was  for  many  years 
a  farm-laborer,  but  became  interested  in  reading,  got  together"  a 
few  books,  and  gained  some  familiarity  with  literature.  About  1729 
he  began  to  be  known  as  a  writer  of  verse.  In  1730  he  was 
brought  to  the  notice  of  Queen  Caroline,  who  made  him  keeper  of 
one  of  her  libraries  and  gave  him  a  pension  of  ,£30  a  year.  Later 
he  took  orders,  preached  for  a  time  in  Kew  Chapel,  and  in  1751 
received  a  living  in  Surrey.  In  1756,  in  a  fit  of  despondency,  he 
drowned  himself  in  the  Thames.  He  had  the  honor  of  having 
his  poems  edited,  in  1736,  by  Joseph  Spence,  "late  Professor  of 
Poetry  in  the  University  of  Oxford";  and  "an  account  of  the 
author"  was  prefixed,  written  in  1730,  in  which  Spence  gives  many 
curious  details  about  Duck's  study  and  reading,  his  ideas  on  poetry, 
his  methods  of  composition.  A  few  lines  from  one  of  his  earliest 
poems  will  illustrate  the  character  of  his  effusions.  The  poem  is 
addressed  "  to  a  gentleman  who  requested  a  copy  of  verses  from  the 
author ": 

"  I  have  before  the  Time  prescrib'd  by  you, 
Expos'd  my  weak  Production  to  your  view ; 
Which  may,  I  hope,  have  pardon  at  your  hand, 
Because  produc'd  to  light  by  your  Command. 
Perhaps  you  might  expect  some  finish'd  Ode, 
Or  sacred  Song,  to  sound  the  Praise  of  God; 
A  glorious  thought  and  laudable  !  "  etc.,  etc. 

26  2.  Thomas  Dermody.  He  rivalled  Chatterton  in  precocity 
and  misfortunes,  and  surpassed  him  in  learning,  but  had  little 
poetic  genius.  He  was  born  in  County  Clare,  Ireland  in  1775; 
at  the  age  of  nine  he  was  assistant  in  Greek  and  Latin  in  his 
father's  school,  and  before  fourteen  was  thoroughly  at  home  in 
Greek,  Latin,  French  and  Italian,  and  knew  some  Spanish.  He  was 
taken  up  by  Henry  Grattan,  liishop  Percy  and  other  influential  men, 
but  ruined  all  his  chances  by  persistent  dissipation.  He  lived  in 
London  for  a  time,  where  he  finally  died  in  destitution  in  1802.  A 
two-volume  life  of  Dermody  was  published  in  1806  and  his  complete 
poems  appeared  in  1807.  His  best  work  was  done  about  1791  in 
imitation  of  Burns.  Such  lines  as  the  following,  in  memory  of  an 
old  crony,  might  almost  be  mistaken  for  the  Scotch  poet's : 


NOTES.  191 

"  No  curate  now  can  work  thy  throat, 
And  alter  clean  thy  jocund  note ; 
Charon  has  plump'd  thee  in  his  boat, 

And  run  ahead : 
My  curse  on  death,  the  meddling  sot ! 

Gay  Johnny  's  dead.1' 

A  couple  of  stanzas  from  My  Own  Elegy  are  also  worth  quoting  : 

"  Gude  faith !  with  all  thy  roguish  trick, 
Thy  Pegasus  has  got  a  kick ; 
Flat  as  a  tomb-stone,  dumb  as  stick, 

Thou  liest  at  last : 
God  send,  thou  gang'st  not  to  old  Nick 

For  frolics  past ! " 

"  I  do  remember  thee  right  well ; 
Thou  didst  in  witty  pranks  excel ; 
Can  all  thy  deeds  of  sly  note  tell, 

Thou  great  verse-fighter ; 
But,  ah !  auld  Death  has  borne  the  bell, 

And  bit  the  biter." 

32  10.  German  plays.  Between  1796  and  1815  the  English  stage 
was  overrun  with  translations  and  adaptations  of  the  plays  of  the 
German  dramatist  Kotzebue  ;  during  these  twenty  years  there  were 
published  no  less  than  eighty-nine  editions  of  one  or  another  of  his 
plays.  Die  Spanier  in  Peru  was  perhaps  the  greatest  favorite. 
Monk  Lewis's  translation,  called  Rolla,  was  published  in  1797  and 
reached  a  second  edition  in  1799.  Sheridan's  adaption,  Pizarro,  was 
made  in  1799  and  reached  its  twenty-sixth  edition  in  1800.  Mean- 
while there  were  also  other  fairly  popular  translations.  Perhaps 
Kotzebue's  next  most  popular  play  was  Menschenhass  und  Rene, 
which,  as  the  Stranger,  remained  for  many  years  a  favorite  ;  the  part 
of  Mrs.  Haller  was  one  of  Mrs.  Siddons's  most  famous  impersonations. 
All  these  dramas  indulged  in  much  weak  sentimentality,  condemned, 
at  least  implicitly,  conventional  morals,  and  represented  passion  as  its 
own  justification.  For  the  various  translations  of  Kotzebue's  works 
see  the  British  Museum  Catalogue.  Probably  these  were  the  plays 
that  Jeffrey  had  chiefly  in  mind,  though  he  may  even  here  be  glancing 
at  Schiller's  Die  Riiuber,  which  he  mentions  a  moment  later. 
The  earliest  English  account  of  Die  Rauber  (1781)  was  that  given 
by  Henry  Mackenzie  in  a  lecture  before  the  Royal  Society  of  Edin- 
burgh in  1788.  The  first  translation  of  Die  Riiuber  was  made  by 
A.  F.  Tytler,  Lord  Woodhouselee,  in  1792;  4th  edition,  1800.  Two 


192  NOTES. 

other  translations  appeared  in  1799,  and  still  a  third  in  1800.  See 
the  British  Museum  Catalogue. 

33  31.  The  heroics  only  of  the  hulks.  Within  a  year  the  first 
two  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  were  published,  and  within  five 
years  the  heroics  of  the  hulks  had  become  the  favorite  cant  of  all 
Europe. 

37.  Second  edition.  The  first  edition  of  the  Lady  of  the  Lake 
was  published  in  May,  1810,  and  consisted  of  2,050  copies;  four 
more  editions,  comprising  18,250  copies,  followed  in  the  same  year. 
Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  ist  ed.  II,  290. 

37  3.  The  race  of  popularity.  The  tone  of  faint  praise  in  this 
article  may  have  been  in  part  prompted  by  Jeffrey's  knowledge  of 
the  leading  part  Scott  had  taken  in  the  establishment  of  the  Tory 
Quarterly  Review  (Feb.,  1809).  At  the  same  time,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  Jeffrey's  article  on  Marmion  (1808)  was  fully  as 
severe.  "  We  must  remind  our  readers,"  he  says,  in  that  article,  "  that 
we  never  entertained  much  partiality  for  this  sort  of  composition, 
and  ventured  on  a  former  occasion  to  express  our  regret  that  an 
author  endowed  with  such  talents  should  consume  them  in  imitations 
of  obsolete  extravagance,  and  in  the  representation  of  manners  and 
sentiments  in  which  none  of  his  readers  can  be  supposed  to  take 
much  interest,  except  the  few  who  can  judge  of  their  exactness. 
To  write  a  modern  romance  of  chivalry  seems  to  be  much  such  a 
phantasy  as  to  build  a  modern  abbey  or  an  English  pagoda."  A 
day  or  two  after  the  appearance  of  the  Marmion  article  Jeffrey  dined 
at  Scott's  house.  Me  was  treated  by  his  host  with  precisely  the  old- 
time  frankness  and  friendship.  But  as  he  was  bowing  himself  out 
Mrs.  Scott  took  her  woman's  revenge  by  saying  in  her  broken 
English,  "Well,  good  night,  Mr.  Jeffrey  —  dey  tell  me  you  have 
abused  Scott  in  de  Review,  and  I  hope  Mr.  Constable  has  paid  you 
very  well  for  writing  it."  Lockhart's  Scott,  ist  ed.,  II,  149.  The 
little  sneer  is  interesting  historically  as  illustrating  the  feeling  prev- 
alent for  many  years  that  paid  reviewing  was  a  disgraceful  trade, 
and  that  the  reviewer  was  a  bookseller's  hack.  It  was  his  fear  of 
this  prejudice  that  had  made  Jeffrey  hesitate  about  becoming  editor 
of  the  Review ;  soon  after  accepting  the  editorship  he  writes  tartly 
to  Horner,  "Do  not  fancy  that  I  am  to  take  your  orders  as  if  I 
were  a  shopman  of  Constable's."  In  point  of  fact,  it  was  owing  to 
the  business  policy  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  to  the  high 
character  of  the  contributors  it  secured,  that  this  prejudice  against 
writing  review-articles  for  pay  was  finally  broken  down. 


NOTES.  193 

Ostensibly  the  publication  of  the  Marmion  essay  made  no  differ- 
ence in  the  personal  relations  between  Jeffrey  and  Scott.  Never- 
theless, after  this  date  Scott  sent  no  more  articles  to  the  Edinburgh  ; 
and  in  about  six  months  he  was  in  active  correspondence  with 
Canning  and  Gifford  about  the  establishment  of  a  new  Tory  Review. 
The  first  number  of  the  Quarterly  Review  was  dated  February,  1809. 

44  8.     Song  by  a  person  of  quality. 

"  I  said  to  my  heart  between  sleeping  and  waking, 
Thou  wild  thing,  that  always  art  leaping  or  aching, 
What  black,  brown,  or  fair,  in  what  clime,  in  what  nation, 
By  turns  has  not  taught  thee  a  pit-a-pat-ation  ? 

Thus  accused,  the  wild  thing  gave  this  sober  reply : 
See  the  heart  without  motion,  though  Celia  pass  by ! 
Not  the  beauty  she  has,  or  the  wit  that  she  borrows, 
Gives  the  eye  any  joys,  or  the  heart  any  sorrows. 

When  our  Sappho  appears,  she  whose  wit 's  so  refined, 
I  am  forced  to  applaud  with  the  rest  of  mankind ; 
Whatever  she  says,  is  with  spirit  and  fire ; 
Ev'ry  word  I  attend ;  but  I  only  admire. 

Prudentia  as  vainly  would  put  in  her  claim, 
Ever  gazing  on  heaven,  though  man  is  her  aim : 
'T  is  love,  not  devotion,  that  turns  up  her  eyes ; 
Those  stars  of  this  world  are  too  good  for  the  skies. 

But  Cloe,  so  lively,  so  easy,  so  fair, 
Her  wit  so  genteel,  without  art,  without  care ; 
\Vhen  she  comes  in  my  way,  the  motion,  the  pain, 
The  leapings.  the  achings,  return  all  again. 

O  wonderful  creature !  a  woman  of  reason  ! 
Never  grave  out  of  pride,  never  gay  out  of  season ! 
When  so  easy  to  guess  who  this  angel  should  be, 
Would  one  think  Mrs.  Howard  ne'er  dreamt  it  was  she?" 

—  Swift's  Works,  Scott's  zd  ed.,  XIII,  331. 

By  the  "  person  of  quality  "  is  said  to  have  been  meant  the  Earl 
of  Peterborough. 

44  31.  Those  -who  first  sought  to  excite  it.  It  is  in  such  passages 
as  this  that  Jeffrey's  imperfect  grasp  of  the  historical  method  is  most 
apparent.  Of  course,  he  utterly  fails  to  realize  here  the  conditions 
uader  which  the  earliest  poetry  was  produced.  lie  conceives  of  the 
rirst  makers  of  verse  as  men  of  the  world,  polished  and  educated 
and  reflective,  consciously  choosing  their  subjects  and  their  methods 
with  a  view  to  producing  the  best  possible  effects.  For  a  suggestive 


194  NOTES. 

account  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  earliest  poetry  of  a  race 
or  tribe  is  produced,  see  Wilhelm  Scherer's  Poetik,  pp.  73-117- 
Cf.  the  Introduction  to  Professor  Gummere's  selection  of  English 
and  Scottish  Ballads  (Athenaeum  Press  Series),  pp.  xxxv  ff. 

45  16.     Some  of  them  .  .  .  set  themselves.     The  chances  seem  to 
be  that  in  this  rather  superficial  contrast  between  modern  and  ancient 
poetry,  Jeffrey  had  three  or  four  very  recent  poets  in  mind  as  repre- 
senting his  classes  of  "after-poets."     By  those  who  "set  themselves 
to  observe  and  delineate  both  characters  and  external  objects  with 
greater  minuteness  and  fidelity "  he  probably  meant   Cowper  and 
Crabbe ;  by  those  who  "  analyze  more  carefully  the  mingling  passions 
of  the  heart,  etc.,"  he  probably  meant  Campbell ;  and  the  poets  of 
the  third  sort,  who  distort  nature  or  dissect  it,  were  doubtless  the 
Lake  poets.     "  Fantastical "  is   his  favorite  sneer  for  Wordsworth. 
Cf.  the  essay  on  Mrs.  Hemans,  where  he  speaks  of  "  the  fantastical 
emphasis  of  Wordsworth,"  and  the  essay  on  Crabbers  Poems,  p.  57, 
where  he  asserts  that  Wordsworth  and  his  associates  are  trying  to 
bring    back    "  the    fantastical    oddity    and    puling    childishness    of 
Withers,  Quarles,  or  Marvel." 

46  7.     Modern  sculpture.     The  superficiality  of  Jeffrey's  art  criti- 
cism is  most  glaring  when  we  contrast  such  passages  as  this  with 
the  best  work  of  German  or  French  critics  or  with  later  English 
criticism.     Jeffrey's  characterization  of  ancient  and  of  modern  poetry 
should  be  compared  with  Hegel's  treatment  of  the  same  subject  in 
the  Introduction  to  his  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art  (Bosanquet's  trans- 
lation) ;  and  the  apologetic  suggestion  of  a  likeness  between  modern 
poetry  and  modern  sculpture  should  be   contrasted  with    Hegel's 
analysis  of  the  two  arts  and  of  their  relative  fitness  to  give  imaginative 
expression  to  modern  life.     Jeffrey  seems  never  to  have  attempted 
any  thorough   comparative  study,  of  the  fine  arts  with  a  view  to 
determining  their  relative  limitations  and  scope. 

52  3.  The  sudden  light  and  colour  of  some  moral  affection.  Doubt- 
less Scott's  descriptions  are,  as  Jeffrey  says,  atmospheric  and 
suggestive  of  moods.  But  the  suggestion  usually  depends  on  the 
time  of  day,  or  the  season,  or  historical  associations,  or  the  incidents 
of  the  actual  story.  A  morning  landscape  breathes  hope  and 
cheerful  confidence ;  an  autumn  landscape  is  wan  and  dispiriting ; 
a  famous  battle-field  kindles  a  glow  of  patriotism.  These  moods 
are  very  simple  and  the  associations  very  obvious.  As  for  any 
more  complex  moods  or  subtler  associations,  we  must  look  else- 
where for  them  than  in  Scott. 


NOTES.  195 

53  5.     We  rejoice  in  his  resurrection.     The  same  reasons  that  led 
Jeffrey  to  republish  so  many  of  his  essays  on  Crabbe  seem  to  justify 
rather  generous  selections  from  those  essays.    The  reasons  are  given 
in  Jeffrey's  note,  p.  53.     Crabbe 's  unpopularity  has  been  more  than 
made  up  to  him  by  the  devotion  of  his  chosen  admirers.     "  Women 
and  young  people  never  will  like  him,  I  think ;  but  I  believe  every 
thinking  man  will  like  him  more  as  he  grows  older."     Letters  and 
Literary  Remains  of  Edward  FitzGerald,    ed.    Wright,    I,    p.  398. 
This  was  the  verdict  of  one  of  Crabbe's  most  patient  and  insinuating 
advocates,  Edward  FitzGerald,  the  translator  of  Omar  Khayyam. 
Jeffrey's  admiration  for  Crabbe  was  probably  somewhat  stimulated 
by  detestation  of  what  seemed  to  him  unendurable  affectation  in 
Wordsworth's  treatment  of  every-day  life  and  by  the  desire  to  make 
Wordsworth's  mysticism  more  grotesque  by  contrasting  it  sharply 
with  Crabbe's  common  sense. 

54  1.     Upwards  of  twenty  years.     Cf.   the  Preface  to  the  third 
edition  of  Crabbe's  Poems,  London,  1808  :    "  About  twenty-five  years 
since  was  published  a  Poem  called  The  Library ;  which,  in  no  long 
time,  was  followed  by  two  others,  The  Village  and  The  Newspaper. 
These  with  a  few  alterations  and  additions  are  here  reprinted ;  and 
are  accompanied  by  a  Poem  of  greater  length,  and  several  shorter 
attempts,  now,  for  the  first  time,  before  the  public."     The  "Poem 
of  greater  length  "  was  The  Parish  Register. 

57  28.  Whimsical  and  nnheard-of  beings.  Cf.  Coleridge,  Bio- 
graphia  Literaria,  chap.  14:  "The  thought  suggested  itself  .  .  . 
that  a  series  of  poems  might  be  composed  of  two  sorts.  In  the 
one,  the  incidents  and  agents  were  to  be,  in  part  at  least,  super- 
natural ;  and  the  excellence  aimed  at  was  to  consist  in  the  interesting 
of  the  affections  by  the  dramatic  truth  of  such  emotions,  as  would 
naturally  accompany  such  situations,  supposing  them  real.  .  .  .  For 
the  second  class,  subjects  were  to  be  chosen  from  ordinary  life  ;  the 
characters  and  incidents  were  to  be  such  as  will  be  found  in  every 
village  and  its  vicinity  where  there  is  a  meditative  and  feeling  mind 
to  seek  after  them,  or  to  notice  them  when  they  present  themselves." 
Jeffrey's  words  in  the  text  are  almost  a  parody,  unconscious,  of 
course,  on  this  passage.  Jeffrey's  "  unheard-of  beings  "  and  "  in- 
credible situations"  are  Coleridge's  "incidents  and  agents  ...  in 
part  at  least  supernatural":  and  Jeffrey's  "strained  and  exaggerated 
moralization "  is  what  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  regard  as  the 
natural  commentary  of  "  a  meditative  and  feeling  mind  "  on  "subjects 
.  .  .  chosen  from  ordinary  life."  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner  seemed 


ig6  NOTES. 

to  Jeffrey  an  "  unheard-of  being,"  and  Wordsworth's  Resolution  and 
Independence,  with  its  interpretation  of  the  leech-gatherer's  life, 
seemed  full  of  "  strained  and  exaggerated  moralization." 

58  11.  Their  own  capricious  feelings.  It  is  to  the  subjectivity  of 
Wordsworth's  poetry  that  Jeffrey  takes  exception.  Wordsworth, 
he  insists,  gives  us  never  the  actual  fact  but  always  his  somewhat 
grotesque  reaction  on  the  fact.  He  puts  before  us,  not  the  actual 
leech-gatherer  of  real  life,  but  a  fantastical  creature  into  which  the 
leech-gatherer  is  transformed  when  seen  through  the  poet's  mists 
of  emotion. 

60  i:j.     A   lover  trots  away.     This  is,  of  course,  an  utterly  unfair 
account    of    the    famous    little    poem,    "  Strange    fits    of    passion 
have  I  known."     The  poem  illustrates  the  way  in  which  an  over- 
mastering mood  colors  all  nature  with  its  own  hue  and  wrests  all 
natural  sights  and  sounds  into  symbols.     The  moon  setting  over 
his  mistress's  cottage  seems  to  the  lover  in   the  poem   to  portend 
disaster.     A  similar  interpretation  of   nature  in  terms  of  an  over- 
mastering mood  may  be  found  in  Tennyson's  Aland,  xiv,  4  :   "  I 
heard  no  sound  where  I  stood." 

61  6.     An  old  nurse,  .  .  .  or  a  monk,  or  parish  clerk  is  always  at 
hand.     These  are  the  conventional  spokesmen  for  tales  of  misery. 
Jeffrey  pleads  for  conventions  and  condemns  Wordsworth's  realism. 
He  regards  poetry  as  something  artificial,  to  be  consciously  wrought 
out  in  harmony  with  laws  and  precedents  and  conventions.     Jeffrey 
never  wholly  escaped  from  this  shallow  view  of  the  poet's  art.     Cf. 
Wordsworth's  Preface  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  where  he  takes  to 
task  the  "  men  who  talk  of  Poetry  as  of  a  matter  of  amusement  and 
idle  pleasure;  who  will  converse  with  us  as  gravely  about  a  taste  for 
Poetry,  as  they  express  it,  as  if  it  were  a  thing  as  indifferent  as  a 
taste  for  rope-dancing,   or    Frontiniac   or  Sherry."     Wordsworth's 
POMS,  Macmillan,  1890,  p.  855. 

60  l.">.  Little  fragments  of  sympathy.  Cf.  Jeffrey's  essay  on 
the  Nature  and  Principles  of  Taste,  pp.  151-2. 

88.  John  Keats.  This  article  was  published  in  August,  1820. 
The  notorious  attacks  on  Keats  had  appeared  about  two  years 
earlier  in  Blackwood's  Magazine  and  in  the  Quarterly  Review.  That 
in  Blackwood^s  is  supposed  to  have  been  by  Lockhart ;  at  any  rate 
the  article  made  use  of  information  about  Keats's  early  life  that 
P>ailey,  an  intimate  friend  of  Keats,  had  supplied  in  confidence  to 
Lockhart  in  the  hope  of  securing  for  Keats  fair  treatment  in  Black- 
•wood's.  The  article  in  the  Quarterly  has  been  usually  attributed  to 


NOTES.  197 

the  editor,   William    Gifford.     The  Blackwood  article  is  much  the 
more  savage  and  abusive,  but  the  Quarterly  article  has  been  longer 
and  more  widely  remembered  because  of  Shelley's  allusions  to  it  in 
Adonais,  and  because  of  Byron's  well-known  epigram : 
"  Who  kill'd  John  Keats  ? 
'  I,'  says  the  Quarterly, 

So  savage  and  Tartarly, 
'  'T  was  one  of  my  feats.' " 

The  story  that  Keats's  suffering  under  these  attacks  sent  him  into 
a  decline  is  no  longer  credited.  See  Colvin's  Life  of  Keats,  chap.  6, 
and  cf.  the  very  careful  review  of  all  the  evidence  in  the  case  in 
Rossetti's  Life  of  Keats,  chap.  5.  Mr.  Rossetti  thinks  that  Jeffrey's 
article  in  the  Edinburgh  had  an  important  influence  in  righting 
Keats  with  the  public. 

SS  4.      That  imitation  of  our  old  writers.     Cf.  1—19. 

SS  19.  The  fimvers  of  poetry.  Cf.  note,  96-8,  and  Introduction, 
p.  xxii.  Keats's  poetry  lends  itself  more  readily  than  the  poetry  of 
Wordsworth,  Shelley,  or  Byron  to  interpretation  as  merely  decorative 
work.  It  is  in  this  way  that  Jeffrey  conceives  of  it,  and  hence  he  can 
reconcile  himself  to  its  richness  and  gorgeousness  aiid  patronize  it 
with  a  safe  conscience.  lie  finds  it  no  more  revolutionary  than  the 
poetry  of  Campbell  or  Moore.  In  point  of  fact,  Keats's  Roman- 
ticism was  a  vital  principle,  as  has  been  shown  by  his  influence  in 
developing  modern  xstheticism. 

89  17.  Imagination  .  .  .  subordinate  to  reason.  Cf.  Brandl's 
account  of  the  process  of  poetic  composition :  "  A  deeply  felt 
situation  is  the  starting  point.  Kindred  representations  join,  often 
by  means  of  external  associations,  and  add  new  features,  and  thus 
the  image  grows.  The  combining  power  consists  in  an  excitation  of 
feeling,  supported  by  a  richly  endowed  memory.  The  understanding 
has  only  to  watch  that  no  inconsistency  creeps  in.  To  which  side  of 
these  two  qualities  the  balance  shall  incline  depends  chiefly  on  the 
taste  of  the  day.  In  the  pseudo-classical  era  feeling  was  too  much 
controlled  by  reflection.  The  original  mental  picture  did  not 
spontaneously  grow,  but  had  to  be  helped  on  by  conscious, 
capricious  aids,  according  to  mechanical  rules;  so  that  the  work, 
despite  the  careful  arrangement  of  the  parts,  gives  rather  the 
impression  of  an  artificial  than  of  an  organic  product.  The  writers 
themselves  felt  this,  and  selected  by  preference  subjects  addressed 
to  the  understanding  —  such  as  moral  poems  and  satires.  The 
Romantic  school,  on  the  other  hand,  failed  from  not  being  critical 


I98  NOTES. 

enough."  Brandl's  Life  of  Coleridge  (Lady  Eastlake's  translation), 
chap.  4.  Cf.  Dilthey's  Das  Schaffen  des  Dichters,  in  Philosophische 
Aufsiitze,  Eduard  Zeller  .  .  .  gewidmet,  Leipzig,  1887. 

90  15.  Any  one  -who  would  .  .  .  represent  the  whole  poem  as 
despicable.  Of  course,  it  is  to  the  author  of  the  Quarterly  article  on 
Keats  that  Jeffrey  is  here  paying  his  compliments. 

90  29.  The  true  genius  of  English  poetry.  Cf.  the  passage  on 
Pope,  p.  10,  and  that  on  Shakspere,  p.  15.  These  passages  mark 
unmistakably  Jeffrey's  advance  beyond  the  point  of  view  of  the 
pseudo-classicists.  Poetry  must  be  something  more  than  rhymed 
rhetoric;  it  must  be  the  work  of  the  imagination.  So  far  Jeffrey 
was  willing  to  go  with  the  Romanticists  in  their  criticisms  on  the 
pseudo-classicists.  He  also  admitted  that  poetry  might  well  enough 
take  us  into  a  land  of  enchantment,  as  it  often  does  in  the  works  of 
the  Elizabethans.  But  when  a  poet  tried  to  find  this  land  of 
enchantment  in  the  very  midst  of  every-day  life  by  looking  on 
common  things  merely  as  symbols  of  an  infinitely  beautiful  spiritual 
world,  Jeffrey  at  once  refused  to  follow;  his  common  sense  rebelled; 
he  was  too  much  of  a  man  of  the  world  to  tolerate  transcendentalism. 

9127.  Those  mysterious  relations,  etc.  Cf.  Selections,  pp.  150 
and  152. 

94.  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage.  The  first  and  second  cantos 
had  been  published  in  1812. 

95  15.      The    Lake   poets.     Jeffrey   has    an    inkling    here    of    an 
important  truth  that  he  never  thoroughly  grasped.      Byron's  madly 
egoistic  revolt  and  Wordsworth's  high  spiritual  conservatism  were 
alike  attempts  to  give  life  greater  richness  of  coloring  and  wealth  of 
emotion    than    it    had    had    in    the    eighteenth    century.      The   full 
significance  of  this  similarity  of  aim  Jeffrey  never  realized;  but  he 
noted  the  greater  imaginativeness  of  style,  intensity  of  temper,  and 
fervor  of  utterance  that  are  characteristic  of  both  poets  and  that 
distinguish  their  portrayal  of  life  from  that  of  the  pseudo-classicists. 

96  8.     Lofty  flights.     This  is  another  of  those   tricks   of  speech 
that  betray  Jeffrey's  theory  of  poetry.     Certain  subjects,  he  implies, 
furnish  the  poet  with  more  or  less  favorable  "occasions"  for  making 
verse;  and  on  these  "occasions"  the  poet  "takes  his  flights."     If 
he  has  "good  taste,"  these  occasions  will  never  be  "mean,"  particu- 
larly in  case  his  "  flight  "  is  to  be  "  lofty."     Poetry  is,  in  other  words, 
merely  the  pretty  pastime  of  clever  men.     Cf.  100-27  and  103-4. 

99  ;W.  A  moral  teacher.  This  essay  is  a  good  illustration  of 
Jeffrey's  criticism  of  literature  from  the  ethical  point  of  view. 


NOTES.  199 

Jeffrey  boasted  of  having  first  made  this  kind  of  criticism  current  in 
England.  Cf.  the  Introduction,  p.  xxv,  and  note  p.  155-lfi.  The 
ethical  critic  of  to-day  pushes  his  analysis  far  beyond  the  point  where 
Jeffrey  stopped.  Compare  with  this  essay  of  Jeffrey's  Mr.  John 
Morley's  essay  on  Byron  in  his  Critical  Rliscellanies,  vol.  I.  Jeffrey 
is  content  with  an  analysis  of  Byron's  typical  hero  and  a  warning 
against  the  type.  Mr.  Morley  shows  why  the  type  originated,  and 
why  it  was  so  popular.  Jeffrey  regards  Byron's  ethics  as  merely  the 
expression  of  the  poet's  own  self-will ;  Mr.  Morley  points  out  the 
connection  between  Byron's  ethics  and  the  social  conditions  in 
the  midst  of  which  the  poet  wrote,  and  brings  the  spirit  of  Byron's 
work  into  intelligible  relation  with  the  spirit  of  the  times. 

100  27.     Accessary  agents.     This  passage  is  a  perfect  illustration 
of  the  view  of  poetry,  described  in  note  96-8.     A  poet  "  deals  in 
heroes,"  he  has  certain  "  extraordinary  adventures  to  detail,"  and  he 
must  "  bring  about  the  catastrophe  of  his  story  "  properly.     In  other 
words,  a  poet  merely  invents  more  or  less  mechanically  an  ingenious 
fable  for  the  delectation  of   his   readers,  and  clothes  this  story  in 
richly  imaginative  language. 

101  17.      We  had  the  good  fortune.     Jeffrey  discreetly  omits   all 
mention  of  the  first  encounter  between  the  Edinburgh  Review  and 
Lord  Byron.     Brougham's  contemptuous  article  on  Byron's  Hours  of 
Idleness  had  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  in  1808,  and  had  provoked 
from  Byron  in  1809  the  fiercest  and  most  effective  satire  in  English 
since  Churchill,  English   Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers.     "As  to  the 
Edinburgh   Reviewers "    Byron  says   in   his    Preface   to   the  second 
edition  (Oct.   1809),  "it  would  indeed  require  a  Hercules  to  crush 
the  Hydra;  but  if  the  author  succeeds  in  merely  '  bruising  one  of 
the  heads  of  the  serpent,'  though  his  own  hand  should  suffer  in  the 
encounter,  he  will  be  amply  satisfied."     It  should  be  noted,  how- 
ever, that   Jeffrey  himself  did  not  fare  badly  in  the  Satire  :   he  is 
termed,    and   justly   termed,   "self-constituted   judge   of   poesy,"  is 
charged  with  a  reckless  eagerness  for  clever  articles,  true  or  false, 
and,  as  arch-critic  of  his  time,  has  to  suffer  indirectly  when  Byron 
sneers  at  the  typical  reviewer.     Otherwise,  he  comes  off  with  little 
damage.     Byron's  account  of  the  qualities  of  the  successful  reviewer 
should  be  noted  : 

"  A  man  must  serve  his  term  to  every  trade 
Save  censure  —  critics  all  are  ready  made. 
Take  hackneyed  jokes  from  Miller,  got  by  rote, 
With  just  enough  of  learning  to  misquote ; 


200  NOTES. 

A  mind  well  skill'd  to  find  or  forge  a  fault ; 
A  turn  for  punning,  call  it  Attic  salt ; 
To  Jeffrey  go,  be  silent  and  discreet 
His  pay  is  just  ten  sterling  pounds  per  sheet : 
Fear  not  to  lie,  'twill  seem  a  sharper  hit ; 
Shrink  not  from  blasphemy,  'twill  pass  for  wit ; 
Care  not  for  feeling —  pass  your  proper  jest, 
And  stand  a  critic,  hated,  yet  caress'd." 

101  26.  Official  observer.  Jeffrey's  various  descriptions  of  his 
duties  as  critic  are  worth  careful  comparison.  Here  he  speaks  of 
himself  as  merely  an  official  observer,  bound  to  watch  lest  the  public 
overlook  some  good  thing.  In  the  essay  on  Scott's  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  p.  37,  he  pretends  "  to  be  privileged,  in  ordinary  cases,  to 
foretell  the  ultimate  reception  of  all  claims  on  public  admiration." 
In  his  essay  on  Scott's  novels  in  1817,  he  professes  to  believe  it 
impossible  '  to  affect  by  any  observations  of  his,  the  judgment  which 
had  been  passed  upon'  those  works  of  fiction.  Similarly,  in  the 
present  instance  he  deems  it  hardly  worth  while  to  comment  on 
Byron's  poems,  inasmuch  as  the  world  has  already  pronounced  so 
decisively  in  their  favor.  From  all  these  passages  it  is  plain  that 
Jeffrey  regarded  himself  as  having  authority  chiefly  as  the  represent- 
ative of  the  best  taste  of  the  most  cultivated  people ;  he  was  the 
spokesman  of  the  intelligent  public.  Whenever,  then,  he  felt  this 
intelligent  public  behind  him  he  played  the  austere  and  pitiless  judge 
to  perfection.  It  was  in  this  high  mood  that  he  dealt  with  Words- 
worth ;  "  This  will  never  do,"  he  declares  of  the  Excursion  ;  later, 
he  laments  Wordsworth's  disregard  of  "  all  the  admonitions  he  has 
received  "  ;  and  he  finally  refuses  to  "  rescind  the  severe  sentence  " 
he  has  passed  on  Wordsworth's  work.  In  these  attacks  Jeffrey 
feels  that  he  has  "  the  world  "  behind  him,  and  it  is  as  the  highest 
exponent  of  the  most  cultivated  taste  that  he  claims  authority.  In 
this  spirit  he  later  takes  Goethe  to  task.  His  confidence  in  his 
public  leads  him  to  substitute  abuse  for  argument.  lie  accuses 
Goethe  of  "affectation,"  "vulgarity,"  "childishness,"  "mere  folly," 
"sheer  nonsense,"  etc.,  etc.  These  terms  are  merely  violent  ways 
of  expressing  dislike  ;  they  have  no  scientific  value ;  they  are  not 
open  to  discussion.  In  such  essays,  Jeffrey  is  the  dogmatic  critic, 
pure  and  simple  ;  he  dogmatizes  boldly  because  he  is  sure  of  his 
public ;  he  dogmatizes  picturesquely  because  he  has  humor,  infinite 
readiness  in  illustration,  and  a  sparkling  style  ;  and  he  dogmatizes 
serviceably  because  of  his  acuteness,  his  tact,  and  his  close  sympathy 


NOTES.  201 

with  the  public  he  serves.  It  was  a  great  relief  and  a  great  advan- 
tage to  the  public  of  Jeffrey's  day  to  know  just  hcnv  they  felt  about 
the  books  that  they  read  ;  and  it  was  part  of  Jeffrey's  mission  to 
tell  them  this  picturesquely  and  amusingly. 

103  4.  Great  force  of  writing.  In  such  passages  as  this  Jeffrey 
fails  to  appreciate  the  organic  relation  between  literature  and  life. 
He  regards  I'yron  as  catching  the  popular  taste  by  clever  devices  of 
style;  he  does  not  see  that  ISyron  was  the  product  of  his  time  and 
that  he  received  so  eager  a  welcome  because  he  was  giving  utterance 
to  ideas  and  feelings  that  had  long  been  fermenting  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  many  people-.  If  Jeffrey  had  thoroughly  grasped  this 
relation  between  author  and  public,  his  theory  of  art  and  his  practice 
of  criticism  would  both  have  been  modified.  He  would  have  got 
beyond  the  view  of  poetry  that  makes  it  a  mere  pastime  ;  and  in 
criticising  contemporary  poetry  he  would  have  considered  it  in  its 
relation  to  social  conditions  and  as  the  expression  of  a  spirit  whose 
presence  must  be  historically  accounted  for. 

105  1.  This  will  never  do.  These  words  have  done  Jeffrey's 
reputation  an  infinite  deal  of  damage.  Wordsworth  finally  con- 
quered the  public,  and  Jeffrey's  epigrammatic  contempt  became  for 
Wordsworth's  admirers  a  mark  of  the  critic's  irredeemable  shallow- 
ness.  Of  late  years,  however,  opinion  has  been  shifting  away  from 
Wordsworth  ;  the  estimate  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  that  Mr.  Court- 
hope  has  included  in  chap.  16  of  his  Life  of  Pope,  tallies  in  many 
respects  with  Jeffrey's  estimate.  Mr.  Courthope  takes  exception 
to  Wordsworth's  constant  interpretation  of  life  in  terms  of  his  own 
quaint  emotion  and  to  his  persistent  neglect  of  the  point  of  view 
and  the  moods  of  the  vast  majority  of  cultivated  people.  These 
are,  of  course,  precisely  the  objections  Jeffrey  urges  on  pages 
109-10.  On  the  whole,  then,  a  fair-minded  reader  of  Jeffrey's 
essay,  particularly  if  he  be  no  devotee  of  transcendentalism,  will 
find  it  sound  in  many  of  its  strictures,  and  irresistibly  droll  in 
its  play  upon  the  poet's  solemn  egotism.  The  article  certainly 
fails  to  do  Wordsworth  justice;  but  that  it  is  totally  wrong  in 
its  cavilling,  as  the  poet's  admirers  used  to  urge,  no  critic  now  will 
assert. 

108  21.  The  admonitions  he  has  received.  This  is  the  very  tone 
and  manner  of  pedagogic  criticism.  The  author  is  a  schoolboy  with 
an  ill-written  exercise  and  the  critic  is  the  master  or  "  monitor  "  who 
rates  him  for  his  blunders.  In  the  essays  he  selected  for  preserva- 
tion Jeffrey  is  rarely  so  magisterial.  Cf.  101-26. 


202  NOTES. 

109  29.     Prevailing  impressions.     Cf.   Courthope's  Life  of  Pope, 
chap.  1 6  :  "  The  two  main  points  of  difference  between  the  classical 
and  the  modern  romantic  schools  are  here  brought  into  vivid  relief. 
Pope,  the  antagonist  of  the  metaphysical  school,  had  taught  that  the 
essence  of  poetry  was  the  presentation,  in  a  perfect  form,  of  imagin- 
ative materials  common  to  the  poet  and  the  reader  — '  What  oft  was 
thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed.'     Wordsworth  maintained,  on 
the  contrary,  that  matter,  not  in  itself  stimulating  to  the  general 
imagination,  might  become  a  proper  subject  for  poetry  if  glorified  by 
the  imagination  of  the  poet." 

110  C.      "  An    occasional   reference    to   -what    "will    l>e   thought   of 
them."     Cf.  Keats's  assertion  :   "  When  I  am  writing  for  myself  for 
the  mere  sake  of  the  moment's  enjoyment,  perhaps  nature  has  its 
course  with  me  —  but  a  Preface  is  written  to  the  Public.  ...     I 
never  wrote  one  single  line*  of  Poetry  with  the  least  shadow  of  public 
thought."     Letters  of  John   A'eats,  April  9,  1818.     Cf.  also   Sydney 
Dobell's  Thoughts  on  Art,  p.  48  :  "  Poetry  ...  is  the  expression  of 
a  mind  according  to  its  own  laws ;   Rhetoric  is  the  expression  of  a 
mind  according  to  the  laws  of  its  Hearer."     Wordsworth  rejected 
emphatically  the  conventional  taste  of  the  world  as  a  standard  of 
poetic  excellence.     Cf.  his  letter  to  Lady  Beaumont,  May  21,  1807: 
"  It  is  impossible  that   any  expectations  can   be  lower  than  mine 
concerning  the  immediate  effect  of  this  little  work  upon  what  is 
called  the  public.     I  do  not  here  take  into  consideration  the  envy 
and  malevolence,  and  all  the  bad  passions  which  always  stand  in  the 
way  of  a  work  of  any  merit  from  a  living  poet ;  but  merely  think  of 
the  pure,  absolute,  honest  ignorance  in  which  all  worldlings  of  every 
rank  and  situation  must  be  enveloped,  with  respect  to  the  thoughts, 
feelings,  and  images,  on  which  the  life  of  my  poems  depends.     The 
things  which  I  have  taken,  whether  from  within  or  without,  what 
have  they  to  do  with  routs,  dinners,  morning  calls,  hurry  from  door 
to  door,  from  street  to  street,  on  foot  or  in  carriage;  with  Mr.  Pitt 
or  Mr.   Fox,   Mr.    Paul    or  Sir   Francis   Burdett,   the   Westminster 
election  or  the  borough  of  Iloniton  ?    In  a  word  —  for  I  cannot  stop 
to  make  my  way  through  the  hurry  of  images  that  present   them- 
selves to  me  —  what  have  they  to  do  with  endless  talking  about 
things  nobody  cares  anything  for  except  as  far  as  their  own  vanity  is 
concerned,  and  this  with  persons  they  care  nothing  for  but  as  their 
vanity  or  selfishness  is  concerned? — What  have  they  to  do  (to  say 
all  at  once)  with  a  life  without  love  ?  .  .  .     It  is  an  awful  truth,  that 
there  neither  is,  nor  can  be,  any  genuine  enjoyment  of  poetry  among 


NOTES.  203 

nineteen  out  of  twenty  of  those  persons  who  live,  or  wish  to  live,  in 
the  broad  light  of  the  world  —  among  those  who  either  are,  or  are 
striving  to  make  themselves,  people  of  consideration  in  society." 
Christopher  Wordsworth's  Memoirs  of  Words-worth,  Boston,  1851, 

I.  333- 

111  11.  A  settled  perversity  of  taste.  What  is  unpardonable  in 
Jeffrey  is  not  his  rejection  of  Wordsworth's  transcendentalism  but 
his  failure  to  comprehend  it.  He  insists  on  regarding  it  either  as  a 
mere  affectation  of  singularity  for  the  sake  of  effect,  or  as  an  inex- 
plicable mental  aberration.  Apparently  he  never  made  a  serious 
effort  to  understand  Wordsworth's  theory  of  poetry  or  theory  of 
life.  He  never  examined  Wordsworth's  work  in  a  scientific  spirit 
and  with  the  simple  purpose  of  mastering  Wordsworth's  ideas.  In 
such  essays  as  this  the  injurious  effects  of  the  dogmatic  spirit  in 
criticism  are  most  unmistakable. 

113  10.  The  old  familiar  one.  In  this  passage  Jeffrey  disregards 
all  that  is  genuinely  distinctive  in  Wordsworth's  new  poetical  Pan- 
theism, and  makes  of  him  merely  a  somewhat  quaint  exponent  of 
the  old-time  view  of  the  mechanical  relation  of  the  universe  to  a  great 
First  Cause.  Neglecting  entirely  Wordsworth's  doctrine  of  the 
immanence  of  God  in  nature,  Jeffrey,  of  course,  failed  to  understand 
his  mystical  interpretation  of  nature  and  found  it  merely  a  mass  of 
"  moral  and  devotional  ravings." 

118  The  IVhite  Doe.  Wordsworth's  explanation  of  his  aim  in  this 
poem  should  be  read  in  connection  with  Jeffrey's  criticism.  "  The 
subject  being  taken  from  feudal  times  has  led  to  its  being  compared 
to  some  of  Walter  Scott's  poems  that  belong  to  the  same  age  and 
state  of  society.  The  comparison  is  inconsiderate.  Sir  Walter 
pursued  the  customary  and  very  natural  course  of  conducting  an 
action,  presenting  various  turns  of  fortune,  to  some  outstanding 
point  on  which  the  mind  might  rest  as  a  termination  or  catastrophe. 
The  course  I  attempted  to  pursue  is  entirely  different.  Everything 
that  is  attempted  by  the  principal  personages  in  '  The  White  Doe ' 
fails,  so  far  as  its  object  is  external  and  substantial.  So  far  as  it  is 
moral  and  spiritual  it  succeeds.  .  .  .  The  anticipated  beatification,  if 
I  may  say  so,  of  [the  heroine's]  mind,  and  the  apotheosis  of  the 
companion  of  her  solitude,  are  the  points  at  which  the  Poem  aims, 
and  constitute  its  legitimate  catastrophe,  far  too  spiritual  a  one  for 
instant  or  widely-spread  sympathy,  but  not  therefore  the  less-fitted 
to  make  a  deep  and  permanent  impression  upon  that  class  of  minds 
who  think  and  feel  more  independently,  than  the  many  do,  of  the 


204  NOTES. 

surfaces  of  things  and  interests  transitory  because  belonging  more  to 
the  outward  and  social  forms  of  life  than  to  its  internal  spirit." 
Christopher  Wordsworth's  Memoirs  of  Wordsworth,  chap.  36. 

122  J8.  The  impenetrable  armour  of  its  conjunct  audacity.  The 
phrase  is  unusually  epigrammatic  for  Jeffrey,  who,  despite  his  repu- 
tation among  his  contemporaries  for  brilliancy  and  sparkle  of  style, 
rarely  gives  his  readers  a  phrase  they  can  quote. 

127  12.  True  to  Nature.  To-day  Scott's  sins  against  truth  are  a 
favorite  topic  with  the  realists  ;  in  Jeffrey's  day  Scott  seemed  "  true 
to  nature  throughout,"  and  was  praised  for  "copying  from  actual 
existences."  This  well  illustrates  how  relative  a  matter  is  realism  in 
fiction ;  one  man's  truth  is  another  man's  lie. 

131  20.  Mr.  Scott.  This  good  guess  must  duly  be  noted  as  an 
illustration  of  Jeffrey's  acuteness. 

133  6.  Works  of  fiction.  Jeffrey's  apologies  for  treating  novels  as 
serious  literature  are  historically  interesting.  lie  has  himself  alluded 
to  these  apologies  and  explained  them  in  his  preface  to  those  of  his 
essays  that  deal  with  novels  and  tales. 

"  As  I  perceive  I  have,  in  some  of  the  following  papers,  made  a  sort  of 
apology  for  seeking  to  direct  the  attention  of  my  readers  to  things  so  insig- 
nificant as  Novels,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  inform  the  present  generation 
that,  in  my  youth,  writings  of  this  sort  were  rated  very  low  with  us —  scarcely 
allowed  indeed  to  pass  as  part  of  a  nation's  permanent  literature  —  and 
generally  deemed  altogether  unworthy  of  any  grave  critical  notice.  Nor,  in 
truth  —  in  spite  of  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage  —  and  Marivaux,  Rousseau,  and 
Voltaire  abroad — and  even  our  own  Richardson  and  Fielding  at  home  — 
would  it  have  been  easy  to  controvert  that  opinion,  in  our  England,  at  the 
time :  For  certainly  a  greater  mass  of  trash  and  rubbish  never  disgraced  the 
press  of  any  country,  than  the  ordinary  Novels  that  filled  and  supported  our 
circulating  libraries,  down  nearly  to  the  time  of  Miss  Edgeworth's  first 
appearance.  There  had  been,  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  to  be  sure,  before ;  and 
Miss  Burney's  Evelina  and  Cecilia —  and  Mackenzie's  Man  of  Feeling,  and 
some  bolder  and  more  varied  fictions  of  the  Misses  Lee.  But  the  staple  of 
our  Novel  market  was,  beyond  imagination,  despicable  :  and  had  consequently 
sunk  and  degraded  the  whole  department  of  literature,  of  which  it  had 
usurped  the  name. 

"  All  this,  however,  has  since  been  signally,  and  happily,  changed  ;  and  that 
rabble  rout  of  abominations  driven  from  our  confines  for  ever.  The  Ncrccls 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott  are,  beyond  all  question,  the  most  remarkable  productions 
of  the  present  age ;  and  have  made  a  sensation,  and  produced  an  effect,  all 
over  Europe,  to  which  nothing  parallel  can  be  mentioned  since  the  days  of 
Rousseau  and  Voltaire;  while,  in  our  own  country,  they  have  attained  a 
place,  inferior  only  to  that  which  must  be  filled  for  ever  by  the  unapproach- 


NOTES.  205 

able  glory  of  Shakespeare.  With  the  help,  no  doubt,  of  their  political  revolu- 
tions, they  have  produced,  in  France,  Victor  Hugo,  Balzac,  Paul  de  Kock, 
etc.,  the  Promessi  Sfosi  in  Italy  —  and  Cooper,  at  least,  in  America.  —  Jn 
England,  also,  they  have  had  imitators  enough;  in  the  persons  of  Mr.  James, 
Mr.  Lover,  and  others.  But  the  works  most  akin  to  them  in  excellence  have 
rather,  I  think,  been  related  as  collaterals  than  as  descendants.  Miss  Edge- 
worth,  indeed,  stands  more  in  the  line  of  their  ancestry:  and  I  take  Miss 
Austen  and  Sir  E.  L.  Bulwer  to  be  as  intrinsically  original;  —  as  well  as  the 
great  German  writers,  Goethe,  Tieck,  Jean  Paul  Richter,  etc.  Among  them, 
however,  the  honour  of  this  branch  of  literature  has  at  any  rate  been 
splendidly  redeemed; — and  now  bids  fair  to  maintain  its  place,  at  the  head 
of  all  that  is  graceful  and  instructive  in  the  productions  of  modern  genius." 

136  21.  Graceful  and  gentleman-like  principles.  In  such  passages 
as  this  Jeffrey's  powers  of  analysis  and  of  quick  and  sure  generaliza- 
tion come  out  very  strikingly.  This  account  of  the  ethics  of  the 
author  of  the  five  new  anonymous  novels  tallies  perfectly  with  the 
conclusions  that  careful  study  of  Scott's  complete  works  and  life 
has  established  as  regards  his  ideas  -of  conduct.  These  essays  on 
Scott  are  examples  of  Jeffrey's  best  manner.  He  is  confident  with- 
out being  supercilious,  severe  without  being  captious  or  harsh  ;  his 
alertness  and  sureness  of  touch  are  conspicuous,  as  are  also  the 
swiftness  and  eager  variety  of  his  style  ;  the  insight  into  the  sources 
of  the  author's  power,  the  analysis  of  methods,  and  the  ready 
appreciation  of  general  effects  are  all  characteristic  of  Jeffrey's  best 
critical  work  ;  and  finally  his  interpretation  of  the  ethical  spirit  of 
Scott's  novels  is  just  and  suggestive,  and  illustrates  the  kind  of  literary 
discussion  in  which  Jeffrey  felt  himself  most  original  and  effective. 

138  25.  So  tame  and  mawkish.  Jeffrey  here  recognizes  the  limita- 
tion in  Scott's  genius  that  Scott  himself  confessed  to  in  his  well- 
known  eulogy  on  Jane  Austen  :  "The  big  bow-wow  strain  I  can  do 
myself,  like  any  now  going  ;  but  the  exquisite  touch  which  renders 
ordinary  commonplace  things  and  characters  interesting  from  the 
truth  of  the  description  and  the  sentiment  is  denied  to  me."  Scott's 
Diary  in  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott,  March  14,  1826. 

149  1.  These  criticisms.  In  the  opening  pages  of  this  essay 
Jeffrey  has  considered  two  possible  views  of  Beauty  :  first,  that 
Beauty  is  a  special  quality  inherent  in  all  beautiful  objects,  and  that 
this  quality  is  recognized  by  a  special  sense  or  faculty  called  the 
power  of  taste  ;  secondly,  that  the  Beautiful  is  merely  the  agreeable. 
The  first  theory  he  finds  untenable  because  of  men's  conflicting 
judgments  about  beauty.  If  beauty  were,  like  color,  a  simple  quality, 
perceived  directly  by  a  peculiar  sense,  all  men  ought  to  agree  in  their 


206  NOTES. 

perceptions  of  beauty  as  they  agree  in  their  perceptions  of  color  ;  a 
beautiful  object  ought  to  force  its  beauty  on  a  man's  sense  of  beauty 
as  unmistakably  and  individually  as  a  colored  object  forces  its  color 
on  his  sense  of  sight.  In  point  of  fact,  men  differ  irreconcilably,  not 
simply  as  to  the  degree  or  kind  of  beauty  in  a  given  object,  but  as  to 
whether  it  has  beauty  at  all.  Hence,  Jeffrey  contends,  Beauty  cannot 
be  a  simple  quality  perceived  by  a  single  sense.  Nor,  in  the 
second  place,  can  the  Beautiful  be  merely  the  agreeable.  For  it  is 
plain  on  a  moment's  thought,  that  there  are  countless  objects,  such 
as  sugar,  an  easy  chair,  an  old  friend,  which  are  agreeable  without 
being  beautiful.  After  disposing  briefly  of  these  two  impossible 
theories  of  Beauty,  Jeffrey  propounds  his  own  theory  in  a  single 
sentence  ;  that  sentence  is  not  worth  repeating,  inasmuch  as  Jeffrey 
at  once  expounds  his  theory  in  the  second  paragraph  of  the 
extract  in  the  text.  Finally,  Jeffrey  takes  up  historically  the  most 
important  theories  of  Beauty  from  the  times  of  the  Greeks  to  his 
own  day,  summarizes  each,  and  suggests  its  shortcomings.  It  is  at 
this  point  that  the  extract  in  the  text  begins. 

149  8.  Mr.  Alison's.  Rev.  Archibald  Alison  (1757-1839)  was  the 
father  of  the  well-known  historian,  Sir  Archibald  Alison.  Though 
Scotch  by  birth,  he  was  educated  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  took 
orders  in  the  English  Church,  and  held  various  livings  in  different 
parts  of  England.  In  1800  he  was  made  minister  of  the  Episcopal 
Chapel,  Cowgate,  Edinburgh,  and  the  rest  of  his  life  was  spent  in 
the  Scottish  capital.  He  published  various  sermons,  of  which  those 
on  the  seasons  were  specially  admired.  Brougham  is  said  to  have 
called  the  sermon  on  autumn  "  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  compo- 
sition in  the  language."  Alison's  Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Principles 
of  Taste  appeared  in  1790;  the  second  edition  (1811)  gave  occasion 
for  Jeffrey's  review,  which  was  published  in  the  Edinburgh  for  May, 
1811.  Jeffrey's  article  was  afterwards  enlarged  and  included  in 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  where  it  formed  the  discussion  on 
Beauty.  It  was  omitted  in  the  ninth  edition.  To  examine 
adequately  the  theory  that  Jeffrey  expounds  would  require  a 
complete  essay  and  a  consideration  of  many  difficult  questions.  The 
reader  who  may  be  interested  in  determining  the  precise  grounds  on 
which  Lord  Jeffrey's  theory  is  discredited  may  find  them  convinc- 
ingly set  forth  in  the  Westminster  Review,  LIII,  1-58,  April,  1850. 
He  may  also  consult  Prof.  Knight's  Philosophy  of  the  Beautiful, 
London,  1893,  Part  "»  39~45-  No  one  contends  to-day  that  a 
man's  individual  experience  has  manufactured  his  sense  of  beauty; 


NOTES.  207 

or  that  the  associations  that  are  drawn  from  his  past  life,  as  an 
independent,  conscious  being,  can  account  for  his  delight  in  the 
contemplation  of  a  beautiful  object.  Cf.  Spencer's  Principles  of 
Psychology,  New  York,  1873,  U>  P-  636  ff.  The  extracts  in  the  text, 
then,  are  given,  not  because  of  any  permanent  worth  in  the  theory 
they  express,  but  because  of  their  historical  significance  and 
because  of  the  light  they  throw  on  Jeffrey's  principles  of  criticism 
and  ways  of  conceiving  of  literature.  Cf.  Introduction,  p.  xxiv. 

149  11.  The  reflection  of  our  own  inward  emotions.  Cf.  the 
comment  of  Burns  in  a  letter  to  Alison  acknowledging  the  receipt  of 
his  Essay.  "  I  own,  sir,  that  at  first  glance  several  of  your  propo- 
sitions startled  me  as  paradoxical.  That  the  martial  clangor  of  a 
trumpet  had  something  in  it  vastly  more  grand,  heroic,  and  sublime, 
than  the  twingle-twangle  of  a  Jews-harp;  that  the  delicate  flexure  of 
a  rose-twig,  when  the  half-blown  flower  is  heavy  with  the  tears  of 
the  dawn,  was  infinitely  more  beautiful  and  elegant  than  the  upright 
stub  of  a  burdock,  and  that  from  something  innate  and  independent 
of  all  associations  of  ideas  ;  —  these  I  had  set  down  as  irrefragable, 
orthodox  truths,  until  perusing  your  book  shook  my  faith."  Poems, 
Songs,  and  Letters  of  Robert  Burns,  Globe  edition,  p.  489. 

151  33.  Material  objects.  Cf.  the  review  of  Knight's  Principles 
of  Taste,  in  the  Edinburgh  for  Jan.,  1806:  "  It  is  hard  to  say  what 
others  feel ;  but  we  have  often  experienced  that  the  sublime  of 
natural  objects,  after  the  first  effect  of  unexpectedness  is  over,  leaves 
a  kind  of  disappointment,  a  vacuity  and  want  of  satisfaction  in  the 
mind.  It  is  not  until  our  imaginations  have  infused  life,  and 
therefore  power,  into  the  still  mass  of  nature,  that  we  feel  real 
emotions  of  sublimity.  This  we  do,  sometimes  by  impersonating  the 
inanimate  objects  themselves ;  sometimes  by  associating  real  or 
fancied  beings  with  the  scenes  which  we  behold.  This  is  that  which 
distinguishes  the  delight  of  a  rich  and  refined  imagination,  amidst 
the  grandest  scenery  of  Wales  or  Scotland,  from  the  rude  stare  of  a 
London  cockney.  The  one  sees  mere  rocks  and  wildernesses,  and 
sighs  in  secret  for  Whitechapel ;  the  other  acknowledges  in  every 
mountain  a  tutelary  genius  of  the  land,  and  peoples  every  glen  with 
the  heroes  of  former  times;  —  defends  the  passage  of  Killicranky 
with  Dundee ;  or  rushes  with  Caractacus  from  the  heights  of 
Snowdon." 

154  28.  What  a  man  feels  to  be  distinctly  beautiful,  is  beautiful  to 
him.  Jeffrey's  conclusion,  then,  seems  to  be  as  follows  :  Any  object 
is  beautiful  to  that  individual  out  of  whose  past  it  has  the  subtle 


208  NOTES. 

power  of  evoking  strangely-blent  chords  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Any 
object  may  therefore  be  beautiful  to  some  special  individual.  But 
there  are  objects  that  have  this  subtle  evocative  power  over  the  past 
of  "the  greater  part  of  mankind,"  by  means  of  "associations  that 
are  universal  and  indestructible."  These  objects  are  beautiful  par 
excellence ;  the  ability  to  create  or  portray  this  kind  of  beauty  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  great  artist,  and  the  ability  to  recognize  it  the 
characteristic  of  the  good  critic.  Jeffrey,  however,  suggests  no 
means  of  determining  abstractly  what  associations  are  universal  and 
indestructible,  and  hence  no  means  of  discriminating  in  thought 
between  a  man's  own  peculiar  objects  of  beauty  and  those  objects 
which  may  be  regarded  as  universally  or  absolutely  beautiful. 
Jeffrey's  standard  of  beauty  therefore  becomes  purely  arbitrary. 
He  has  to  appeal  for  a  decision  as  regards  the  relative  worth  of 
associations  and  emotions  to  the  taste  of  a  capriciously  chosen 
minority.  Cf.  his  essay  on  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  p.  39,  lines  13-29. 
His  judges  are  "persons  eminently  qualified,  by  natural  sensibility, 
and  long  experience  and  reflection,  to  perceive  all  beauties  that 
really  exist,  as  well  as  to  settle  the  relative  value  and  importance  of 
all  the  different  sorts  of  beauty."  How  these  judges  are  to  be 
recognized  or  chosen, —  whether,  for  example,  Gifford  of  the 
Quarterly  Review  is  one  of  these  judges,  and  how  they  are  to  settle 
their  disputes  among  themselves,  —  these  are  questions  that  Jeffrey 
leaves  unanswered.  In  other  words,  Jeffrey  can  discover  no 
objective  standard  of  beauty,  and  the  only  escape  from  absolute 
lawlessness,  that  he  suggests,  consists  in  his  offer  of  himself  as 
"self-constituted  judge  of  poesy." 

155  11.  The  best  taste  .  .  .  belongs  to  the  best  affections.  It  seems 
singular  that  Jeffrey  could  have  maintained  this  belief  after  a  glance 
at  his  most  intimate  friends.  Sydney  Smith,  for  example,  was  a 
man  of  overflowing  social  sympathies,  of  quick  and  lively  fancy,  of 
great  readiness  of  observation  ;  yet  he  had  only  the  slightest  interest 
in  art;  he  boasted  of  having  spent  but  fifteen  minutes  in  the  Louvre; 
and  in  all  his  book-reviews  there  is  no  trace  of  appreciation  of 
beauties  of  style,  or  of  the  purely  artistic  qualities  of  prose  or  of 
verse. 

155  16.  Sensibility  and  social  sympathies.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  how  this  theory  of  the  nature  of  beauty  falls  in  with  Jeffrey's 
principles  and  practice  in  literary  criticism,  —  particularly  with  his 
ethical  interpretation  of  literature.  The  recognition  of  beauty 
depends,  in  Jeffrey's  view  of  the  matter,  wholly  on  a  man's  uncon- 


NOTES.  209 

scious  revival  of  past  emotions  of  sympathy  with  his  fellows. 
Accordingly,  a  man  who  has  been  immersed  in  himself,  and  has  felt 
no  love  or  pity  for  his  kind,  will  have  a  very  narrow  range  of 
aesthetic  emotion  ;  and  a  man  who  has  loved,  or  pitied,  or  feared,  or 
hated  on  wrong  occasions,  /.  c.,  immorally,  will  have  a  debased  and 
ignoble  taste  in  art.  On  this  theory  of  the  origin  of  taste,  it  is  plain 
that  the  ethical  value  of  literature,  the  moral  spirit  of  an  author, 
must  assume  for  the  critic  a  great  importance;  and  that  the 
discussion  of  an  author's  moral  tone  will  be  in  the  highest  degree 
necessary,  not  simply  because  of  the  moral  influence  his  writings  will 
be  likely  to  exert,  but  because  the  key  to  the  writer's  feeling  for  the 
beautiful  is  likely  to  be  found  in  his  moral  feelings.  From  this 
point  of  view,  then,  Jeffrey's  development  of  the  ethical  criticism  of 
literature,  —  a  kind  of  criticism  for  which  in  the  introduction  to  his 
collected  essays  he  takes  special  credit,  —  is  seen  to  follow  neces- 
sarily from  his  general  theory  of  art.  Cf.  Introduction,  p.  xxv. 

159.  Wilhelm  Meister's  Apprenticeship.  This  was,  of  course, 
Carlyle's  translation  of  Wilhalm  Meisters  Lehrjahre.  Jeffrey's 
specific  judgments  on  the  book  are  worthless,  but  his  speculations 
on  the  relation  between  National  Character  and  National  Taste  are 
worth  preserving,  and  should  Ije  compared  with  his  ideas  on  the 
same  subject  as  expressed  in  the  essay  on  Madame  de  Stael's  De  la 
Litteraturc  (1812),  and  in  the  essay  on  the  Memoirs  of  Baber  (1827). 
An  increase  in  Jeffrey's  firmness  of  grasp  on  at  least  the  theory  of 
the  historical  method  is  certainly  noticeable. 

159  ~.  Human  nature  .  .  .  fundamentally  the  same.  Cf.  Jeffrey's 
conclusion,  two  years  later,  touching  "  inherent "  differences  of  char- 
acter between  Asiatic  and  European  races.  See  the  essay  on  the 
Memoirs  of  Baber,  p.  180  ff. 

159  11.  Two  great  classes.  This  passage  recalls  Taine's  classifica- 
tion of  the  forces  that  shape  and  determine  a  nation's  literature. 
Such  forces  may  be  grouped,  according  to  Taine,  under  the  three 
categories,  —  race,  milieu,  moment,  race,  surroundings,  and  epoch. 
"What  we  call  the  race,"  Taine  explains,  "are  the  innate  and 
hereditary  dispositions  which  man  brings  with  him  into  the  world, 
and  which,  as  a  rule,  are  united  with  the  marked  differences  in  the 
temperament  and  structure  of  the  body."  This  element  in  the 
problem  Jeffrey  neglects  in  the  present  essay  ;  two  years  later,  how- 
ever, in  the  essay  on  the  Memoirs  of  Baber,  Jeffrey  admits  explicitly 
that  races  differ  inherently  in  character,  and  after  such  an  admission 
he  could  hardly  have  denied  the  influence  of  such  differences  on 


210  NOTES. 

national  literatures.  Taine's  account  of  his  second  class  of  forces 
is  as  follows  :  "  Man  is  not  alone  in  the  world  ;  nature  surrounds 
him,  and  his  fellow-men  surround  him  ;  accidental  and  secondary 
tendencies  overlay  his  primitive  tendencies,  and  physical  or  social 
circumstances  disturb  or  confirm  the  character  committed  to  their 
charge.  Sometimes  the  climate  has  had  its  effect.  .  .  .  Sometimes 
the  state  policy  has  been  at  work.  .  .  .  Sometimes  the  social  condi- 
tions have  impressed  their  mark,  as  eighteen  centuries  ago  by 
Christianity,  and  twenty-five  centuries  ago  by  Buddhism."  The 
parallelism  is  unmistakable  between  this  class  of  causes  and  Jeffrey's 
"  accidental  causes  .  .  .  such  as  ...  government  .  .  .  relative  posi- 
tion as  to  power  and  civilization  to  neighbouring  countries  .  .  .  pre- 
vailing occupations  .  .  .  soil  and  climate."  Finally,  of  the  influence 
of  the  epoch,  Taine  says  :  "  There  is  yet  a  third  rank  of  causes  ;  for, 
with  the  forces  within  and  without,  there  is  the  work  which  they 
have  already  produced  together,  and  this  work  itself  contributes  to 
produce  that  which  follows.  ...  It  is  with  a  people  as  with  a  plant ; 
the  same  sap,  under  the  same  temperature,  and  in  the  same  soil, 
produces,  at  different  steps  of  its  progressive  development,  different 
formations,  buds,  flowers,  fruits,  seed-vessels,  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  one  which  follows  must  always  be  preceded  by  the  former,  and 
must  spring  up  from  its  death."  All  these  influences,  which  Taine 
includes  under  the  general  name  of  epoch,  correspond  precisely  to 
those  that  Jeffrey  has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of  "  the  newness  or 
antiquity "  of  a  society,  and  of  the  various  stages,  through  which 
nations  inevitably  pass,  in  their  "  progress  from  rudeness  to  refine- 
ment." In  this  essay,  then,  Jeffrey  anticipates  very  strikingly  the 
points  of  view,  the  analysis,  and  the  classification  of  facts,  that  Taine 
did  so  much  to  make  popular  forty  years  later,  in  the  Introduction  to 
his  Histoire  de  la  litterature  anglaise.  For  Taine's  theory  see  his 
History  of  English  Literature,  Van  Laun's  translation,  New  York, 
1891,  Introduction.  For  suggestive  criticisms  on  Taine's  position 
see  Sainte-Beuve,  Causer ies  dn  liindi,  Paris,  3d  ed.,  XIII,  p.  249  ff.  ; 
Paul  Bourget,  Essais  de  psychologic  contemporaine,  Paris,  1887, 
I,  p.  iSoff;  fimile  Hennequin,  La  critique  scicntifique,  Paris,  1888, 
pp.  93-127. 

161  31.  The  Taste  of  the  Nation.  The  reader  should  bear  in  mind 
Jeffrey's  theory  of  Beauty,  as  expounded  in  the  article  on  the  Nafure 
and  Principles  of  Taste,  p.  149  ff.  Objects  are  beautiful  according 
as  they  wake  in  the  mind  echoes  of  past  passions, — love,  hate,  pity, 
fear, — which  have  been  associated  with  these  objects  in  actual  experi- 


NOTES.  2ii 

ence.  Now  it  is  at  once  plain  that  such  widely  differing  civilizations 
as  those  Jeffrey  describes  in  the  text  would  lead  to  wide  and  radical 
differences  in  the  associations  of  pleasure  and  pain  that  would  cling 
about  the  same  object  in  two  different  nations.  Hence,  the  same 
object  would  have  wholly  different  aesthetic  values  for  two  different 
nations.  In  some  such  way  as  this  Jeffrey  would  apply  his  theory  of 
lieauty  to  explain  the  variations  in  national  standards  of  Taste. 

163  14.  On  anything  so  purely  accidental.  Jeffrey  is  here  not  far 
from  the  view  of  the  modern  scientific  critic,  —  from  that  of 
Taine,  for  example.  To  be  sure,  Jeffrey  regards  the  character  of 
Shakspere  and  the  characters  of  other  writers  as  "  on  the  whole 
casual " ;  but  by  this  phrase  he  merely  denotes  that  residuum  of 
inexplicableness  in  every  individuality  that  defies  the  keenest 
scientific  analysis.  Such  a  residuum  remains  to-day  in  spite  of  all 
the  advances  in  physiology  and  biology,  and  psychology  and 
sociology,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  talk  about  heredity  and  environ- 
ment. For  Taine,  as  for  Jeffrey,  individual  character  was  still 
inexplicable,  though  Taine  perhaps  brought  the  "casual"  element 
within  narrower  limits  than  Jeffrey  would  have  believed  possible. 
The  important  point  to  note  is  that  Jeffrey  pleads  in  this  essay  for  a 
view  of  literature  that  makes  it  a  growth  in  accordance  with  law. 
Shakspere's  poetry,  he  contends,  could  not  have  been  produced  in 
France ;  could  have  been  produced  only  in  England.  Shakspere's 
poetry  was  therefore  determined  in  character  by  the  milieu  in  the 
midst  of  which  it  was  written.  Of  the  nature  and  degree  of  the 
influence  of  the  epoch  Jeffrey  is  not  so  sure;  and  of  the  influence  of 
race  he  has  only  the  vaguest  notions.  But  at  least  for  the  time 
being,  and  in  theory,  he  is  convinced  that  literature  is  something 
more  than  the  artificial  product  of  ingenious  men,  who,  in  writing 
verse  and  prose,  follow  idly  their  own  whims  and  caprices.  Cf. 
168-22. 

168  8.  Peculiarities  of  German  taste.  In  trying  to  account  for 
German  taste,  Jeffrey  considers  first  those  influences  that  Taine 
would  group  under  the  term  moment,  and  secondly,  those  that  Taine 
would  class  as  milieu.  Of  course  the  discussion  that  follows  is 
grotesquely  inadequate ;  it  could  not  fail  to  be  inadequate,  inasmuch 
as  Jeffrey  had  only  the  merest  smattering  of  a  second-hand  knowl- 
edge of  German  literature,  and  was  familiar  with  German  history 
only  as  an  intelligent  English  reader  might  be  familiar  with  it  who 
had  kept  close  watch  on  current  European  politics.  Of  German 
metaphysics  and  of  German  literary  criticism  Jeffrey  was  consciously 


212  NOTES. 

and  proudly  ignorant.  Under  these  circumstances,  his  explanation 
of  German  taste  was  bound  to  be  merely  a  botch  of  random  guesses, 
more  or  less  happy  intuitions,  and  superficially  clever  generalities. 
A  few  years  later  Carlyle  undertook  the  same  problem  with 
an  altogether  different  equipment  and  with  altogether  different 
results. 

16822.  They  grew  tired  of  being  respected.  It  seems  strange  to 
find  Jeffrey  relapsing  here  into  the  superficial  view  of  literature  as 
merely  the  work  of  clever  artificers  trying  to  show  skill  and  win 
fame.  His  whole  preceding  argument  has  tended  to  prove  that  the 
literature  of  any  epoch  is  made  what  it  is  because  of  its  spontaneous 
adaptation  to  the  social  needs  of  the  times.  At  least,  this  is  the 
interpretation  that  a  modern  reader,  familiar  with  the  views  of  Taine 
and  his  school,  would  put  on  the  opening  pages  of  this  essay.  The 
present  passage,  however,  seems  to  show  that  Jeffrey  only  partly 
realized  the  conclusions  to  which  his  arguments  lead.  His  problem 
is  to  explain  the  characteristics  of  various  periods  in  German 
literature.  In  trying  to  solve  this  problem  he  does  not  consider  how 
the  literature  of  each  period  corresponded  to  the  social  needs  of  the 
time,  and  gave  imaginative  expression  to  the  ideals  of  life  that  were 
current  in  the  period  in  question.  He  considers  literature  apart 
from  the  life  of  the  times  and  regards  it  merely  as  the  work  of 
"  authors  "  writing  for  their  own  delectation  or  for  public  applause. 
He  sees  that  in  their  choice  of  subjects  and  in  their  methods  of 
treatment  these  authors  must  have  been  influenced  somewhat  by 
surroundings  and  epoch.  But  his  analysis  of  the  nature  of  this 
influence  is  very  unconvincing ;  and  he  does  not  conceive  either  of 
the  life  of  the  German  nation  or  of  its  expression  in  the  literature  of 
its  authors  as  an  evolution  in  accordance  with  law.  This  essay  is 
almost  the  only  one  where  Jeffrey  ever  attempts  to  use  the  historical 
method  in  the  study  of  contemporary  literature.  His  failure  here 
shows  just  how  far  he  comprehended  and  had  control  of  the  method 
in  question.  He  understood  in  its  main  principles  the  theory  on 
which  the  use  of  the  method  depends  for  its  justification.  He  even 
applied  the  method  with  some  success  to  explain  the  characteristics 
of  certain  earlier  periods  of  English  literature.  But  in  the  study  of 
contemporary  literature  he  never  used  the  method  successfully; 
partly  because  he  was  more  interested  in  judging  than  in  explaining ; 
partly  because  he  was  not  broad  enough  in  his  sympathies  to  enter 
into  all  the  conflicting  ideals  of  life  and  of  art  that  surrounded  him ; 
partly  because  he  had  no  adequate  conception  of  society  as  an 


NOTES.  213 

organism  complex  in  structure  and  manifold  in  functions,  and  no 
clear  insight  into  the  subtle  interplay  of  social  forces. 

169  32.      Tristram    Shandy  .   .  .  Richardson.      For   a   somewhat 
similar   account    of  the   influence   of   English    models    on  German 
authors  of   the   baser  sort,    see   Coleridge's  Biographia  Literaria, 
Bonn's  edition,  chap.  23. 

170  1.      The  fantastical  speculations   of  John    Buncle.      Thomas 
Amory,  the  author  of  The  Life  of  John  Buncle,  Esq.,  was  born  about 
1691  and  died  in  1788.     He  is  believed  to  have  known  Swift,  was  at 
one  time  intimate  with  Toland  and  other  Deists,  but  later  lived 
almost  a  hermit's  life,  and  is  thought  to  have  been  not  quite  sane. 
The  first  volume  of  \\isjohn  Buncle  appeared  in  1756,  the  second  in 
1766.     The  work  is  a  strange  compound  of  romantic  adventures, 
rhapsodies    over    natural    scenery,    and    theological    speculations. 
Buncle  marries  and  buries  seven  wives  in  the  course  of  his  tale,  all 
of  them  beautiful  creatures  whom  he  chances  upon  in  his  peregri- 
nations through  the  English  lake  region.     One  noteworthy  point  in 
the  book  is  the  author's  genuine  appreciation  of  picturesque  scenery. 
Hazlitt  devotes   Number   18   of  his  Round   Table   to  a  eulogy  of 
Amory,  whom  he  calls   the  English   Rabelais.     Lamb  was  also  a 
reader  of  Buncle.     Cf.  his  essay  on  the  Two  Races  of  Men. 

173  l.  A  very  curicnis  .  .  .  work.  As  the  extracts  in  the  text 
deal  hardly  at  all  with  Baber  it  is  not  worth  while  to  go  into  the 
details  of  his  life.  The  extracts  have  been  given  because  they 
express  Jeffrey's  latest  ideas  touching  the  influence  of  race  on 
civilization,  and  because  they  supplement  suggestively  the  specula- 
tions at  the  beginning  of  the  essay  on  Wilhelm  Meister. 

180  16.     A  natural  and  inherent  di/erence.    Cf.  159-7  and  159-11. 


ADVERTISEMENTS 


16 


HIGHER    ENGLISH. 


ATHENAEUM    PRESS    SERIES. 

ISSUED   UNDER  THE  GENERAL  EDITORSHIP  OF 

PROFESSOR  GEORGE  LYMAN  KITTREDGE,  of  Harvard  University, 

A3TO 

PROFESSOR  C.  T.  WINCHESTER,  of  Wesleyan  University. 

TT  is  proposed  to  issue  a  series  of  carefully  edited  works  in 
English  Literature,  under  the  above  title.  This  series  is  in- 
tended primarily  for  use  in  colleges  and  higher  schools ;  but  it 
will  furnish  also  to  the  general  reader  a  library  of  the  best  things 
in  English  letters  in  editions  at  once  popular  and  scholarly.  The 
works  selected  will  represent,  with  some  degree  of  completeness, 
the  course  of  English  Literature  from  Chaucer  to  our  own  times. 
The  volumes  will  be  moderate  in  price,  yet  attractive  in  appear- 
ance, and  as  nearly  as  possible  uniform  in  size  and  style.  Each 
volume  will  contain,  in  addition  to  an  unabridged  and  critically 
accurate  text,  an  Introduction  and  a  body  of  Notes.  The  amount 
and  nature  of  the  annotation  will,  of  course,  vary  with  the  age 
and  character  of  the  work  edited.  The  notes  will  be  full  enough 
to  explain  every  difficulty  of  language,  allusion,  or  intercretation« 
Full  glossaries  will  be  furnished  when  necessary. 

The  introductions  are  meant  to  be  a  distinctive  feature  of  the 
series.  Each  introduction  will  give  a  brief  biographical  sketch  of 
the  author  edited,  and  a  somewhat  extended  study  of  his  genius, 
his  relation  to  his  age,  and  his  position  in  English  literary  history. 
The  introductory  matter  will  usually  include  a  bibliography  of 
the  author  or  the  work  in  hand,  as  well  as  a  select  list  of  critical 
and  biographical  books  and  articles.  See  also  Announcement!!. 

Sidney's  Defense  of  Poesy. 

Edited  with  an  Introduction  and  Notes  by  ALBERT  S.  Cook,  Professor 
of  English  in  Yale  University.  12nio.  Cloth,  xlv+103  pages.  By 
mail,  90  cents;  for  introduction,  80  cents. 


William  Mintp,  Late  Prof,  of  Lit- 
erature, University  of  Aberdeen:  It 
seems  to  me  to  he  a  very  thorough 
and  instructive  piece  of  work.  The 
interests  of  the  student  are  consulted 


in  every  sentence  of  the  Introduction 
and  Notes,  and  the  paper  of  ques- 
tions is  admirable  as  a  guide  to  the 
thorough  study  of  the  substance  of 
the  essay. 


HIGHER   ENGLISH. 


17 


Ben  J orison's  Timber:   or  Discouen'es 

Made  upon  Men  and  Matter,  as  they  have  Flowed  out  of  his  Daily 
Readings,  or  had  their  Reflux  to  his  Peculiar  Notions  of  the  Times, 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  FELIX  E.  SCHELLING,  Profes- 
sor in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  12mo.  Cloth,  xxxviii  +  1WJ 
pages.  Mailing  price,  90  cents ;  for  introduction,  80  cents. 

is  the  first  attempt  to  edit  a  long-neglected  English  classic, 
which  needs  only  to  be  better  known  to  take  its  place  among 
the  best  examples  of  the  height  of  Elizabethan  prose.  The  intro- 
duction and  a  copious  body  of  notes  have  been  framed  with  a 
view  to  the  intelligent  understanding  of  an  author  whose  wide 
learning  and  wealth  of  allusion  make  him  the  fittest  exponent  of 
the  scholarship  as  well  as  the  literary  style  and  feeling  of  his  age. 


Edward  Dowden,  Prof,  offlnglisk, 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  Ireland :  It 
is  a  matter  for  rejoicing  that  so  valu- 
able and  interesting  a  piece  of  liter- 


ature as  this  prose  work  of  Jonson 
should  be  made  easily  accessible,  and 
should  have  all  the  advantages  of 
scholarly  editing. 


Selections  from  the  Essays  of  Francis  Jeffrey. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  LEWIS  E.  GATES,  Instructor  in 
English  in  Harvard  University.  12mo.  Cloth.  xlv  +  2113  pages.  By 
mail,  $1.00;  for  introduction,  1(0  cents. 

rpIIE  selections  are  chosen  to  illustrate  the  qualities  of  Jeffrey's 
style  and  his  range  and  methods  as  a  literary  critic.  The 
introduction  gives  a  brief  sketch  of  the  history  of  Reviews  in 
England  down  to  1802  and  suggests  some  of  the  more  import- 
ant changes  in  critical  methods  and  in  the  relations  between  critic 
and  public  which  were  brought  about  by  the  establishment  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review.  This  volume  is  especially  valuable  for  classes 
that  are  beginning  the  independent  study  of  literary  topics  and 
methods  of  criticism. 


H.  Humphrey  Neill,  Prof,  of  Eng- 
lish, Antherst  (Jollcye :  It  will  sur- 
prise many  lay  readers  in  English 
literature  to  find  that  the  writings  of 
one  now  counted  a  back  number  in 
literature  are  so  full  of  interest,  and 
even  of  modern  spirit.  The  intro- 


duction is  well  done.  The  third 
section  is  especially  valuable  and 
interesting  to  the  readers  of  modern 
periodicals;  and  the  whole  book 
stands  well  beside  the  other  contri- 
butions to  the  study  of  literature 
now  issuing  from  your  press. 


18  HIGHER   ENGLISH. 

Old  English  Ballads. 

Selected  and  edited,  with  Notes  and  Introduction,  by  Professor  F.  B. 
GUMMERE  of  Haverford  College.    12mo.    Cloth.  pages.    By 

mail,       cents;  for  introduction,       cents. 

rPHE  aim  has  been  to  present  the  best  of  the  traditional  English 
and  Scottish  ballads  and  also  to  make  the  collection  repre- 
sentative. The  texts  are  printed  with  no  "improvements"  what- 
soever, and  but  few  changes  in  arrangement.  The  Gest  of  Robin 
Hood  is  given  entire,  not  only  for  its  intrinsic  merits,  but  to  assist 
in  the  study  of  epic  development.  The  pieces  have  been  arranged 
by  subject,  but  not  divided  into  groups  or  classes.  The  glossary 
will  be  found  full,  but  simple.  Philological  details  have  been 
given  only  when  the  explanation  of  the  passage  rendered  them 
necessary.  The  notes  have  been  prepared  according  to  the  same 
principle,  —  the  elucidation  of  the  text  and  the  thought.  The  intro- 
duction presents  a  detailed  study  of  popular  poetry  and  the  views 
of  its  chief  critics,  with  notes  on  metre,  style,  etc. 

Selections  from  the  Poetry  and  Prose  of  Thomas 

Gray. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  WM.  LYON  PHELPS,  Instructor 
in  English  Literature  at  Yale  College.    12mo.    Cloth.  pages. 

By  mail,       cents  ;  for  introduction,       cents. 


S  volume  contains  all  of  the  poems  of  Gray  that  are  of  any 
real  interest  and  value,  and  the  prose  selections  include  the 
Journal  in  the  Lakes  entire,  and  extracts  from  his  Letters  of  auto- 
biographical and  literary  interest.  The  Introduction,  besides 
containing  a  Life  of  G*ay,  a  Bibliography,  etc.,  gives  a  summary 
of  his  historical  significance,  with  a  critical  review  of  his  work. 
A  special  feature  will  be  an  article  on  Gray's  Knowledge  of  Norse, 
by  Professor  Kittredge  of  Harvard.  The  text  is  taken  directly 
from  the  original  editions,  and  is  printed  entire  with  scrupulous 
accuracy.  The  Notes  on  the  Poems  explain  every  doubtful  or 
obscure  passage,  all  allusions  to  historical  or  literary  matters,  and 
give  the  most  important  parallel  passages  with  exact  references. 
The  Notes  on  the  Prose  are  very  brief,  and  simply  explanatory. 
This  volume  of  Gray,  beside%  being  adapted  for  the  general  reader, 
will  be  especially  useful  in  schools  and  colleges. 


HIGHER   K/.GLISH.  11 

Minto's  Manual  of  English  Prose  Literature. 

Designed  mainly  to  show  characteristics  of  style.  By  WILLIAM  MINTO, 
M.A.,  Professor  of  Logic  and  English  Literature  in  the  University  ol 
Aberdeen,  Scotland.  12mo.  Cloth.  566  pages.  Mailing  price,  $1.65; 
for  introduction,  £1.50. 

rpHE  main  design  is  to  assist  in  directing  students  in  English 
composition  to  the  merits  and  defects  of  the  principal  writers 
of  prose,  enabling  them,  in  some  degree  at  least,  to  acquire  the  one 
and  avoid  the  other.  The  Introduction  analyzes  style :  elements 
of  style,  qualities  of  style,  kinds  of  composition.  Part  First  gives 
exhaustive  analyses  of  De  Quincey,  Macaulay,  and  Carlyle.  These 
serve  as  a  key  to  all  the  other  authors  treated.  Part  Second  takes 
up  the  prose  authors  in  historical  order,  from  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury up  to  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth. 

Hiram  Corson,  Prof.  English  Lit- 
erature, Cornell  University :  With- 


out  going  outside  of  this  book,  an  ear- 
nest student  could  get  a  knowledge 
of  English  prose  styles,  based  on  the 
soundest  principles  of  criticism,  such 
as  he  could  not  get  in  any  twenty 
volumes  which  I  know  of. 

Katharine  Lee  Bates,  Prof,  of 
English,  Wellesley  College:  It  is  of 
sterling  value. 

John  M.  Ellig,  Prof,  of  English 
Literature,  Obcrlin  College :  I  am 
using  it  for  reference  with  great  in- 


terest. The  criticisms  and  comments* 
on  authors  are  admirable  —  the  best, 
on  the  whole,  that  I  have  met  with 
in  any  text-book. 

J.  Scott  Clark,  Prof,  of  Rhetoric, 
Syracuse  University :  We  have  now 
given  Minto's  English  Prose  a  good 
trial,  and  I  am  so  much  pleased  that 
I  want  some  more  of  the  same. 

A.  W.  Long,  Wofford  College,  Spar- 
taribura,  S.C.:  I  have  used  Minto's 
English  Poets  and  English  Prose  the 
past  year,  and  am  greatly  pleased 
with  the  results. 


Minto's  Characteristics   of  the  English   Poets, 

from  Chaucer  to  Shirley. 

By  WILLIAM  MINTO,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Logic  and  English  Literature 
in  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  Scotland.  12mo.  Cloth,  xi  +  382  pages. 
Mailing  price,  $1.65;  for  introduction,  $1.50. 

College  Requirements  in  English. 

Entrance  Examinations. 

By  Rev.  ARTHUR  WENTWORTH  EATON,  B.A.,  Instructor  in  English  in 
the  Cutler  School,  New  York.  '  liiino.  Cloth.  74  pages.  Mailing 
price,  90  cents ;  to  teachers,  80  cents. 


12  HIGHER   ENGLISH. 

Selections  in  English  Prose  from  Elizabeth  to 

Victoria.     1580-1880. 

By  JAMES  M.  GARNETT,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Liter- 
ature in  the  University  of  Virginia.  12mo.  Cloth,  ix  -j-  701  pages. 
By  mail,  $1.65:  for  introduction,  §1.50. 

rPHE  selections  are  accompanied  by  such  explanatory  notes  as 
have  been  deemed  necessary,  and  will  average  some  twenty 
pages  each.  The  object  is  to  provide  students  with  the  texts 
themselves  of  the  most  prominent  writers  of  English  prose  for 
the  past  three  hundred  years,  in  selections  of  sufficient  length  to 
be  characteristic  of  the  author,  and,  when  possible,  they  are  com- 
plete works  or  sections  of  works. 


H.  N.  Ogden,  West  Virr/inia  Uni- 
versity :  The  book  fulfills  my  expec- 
tations in  every  respect,  and  will 
become  an  indispensable  help  in  the 


F.  B.  Gummere,  Prof,  of  English, 
Huverford  College:  I  like  the  plan, 
the  selections,  and  the  making  of  the 
book. 


work  of  our  senior  English  class. 

Macau lay's  Essay  on  Mi /ton. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  HERBERT  A.  SMITH,  Instructor 
in  English  in  Yale  University.     12mo.    Paper.  pages.    Mailing 

price,       cents;  for  introduction,       cents. 

A  CONVENIENT  and  well-edited  edition  of  Macaulay's  masterly 
essay  on  Milton.     The  introduction  and  notes  are  especially 
valuable  to  students. 

DeFoe's  History  of  the  Plague  in  London. 

Journal  of  the  Plague  Year. 

Edited  by  BYRON   S.   HURLBUT,   Instructor  in  English   in  Harvard 
University.     12mo.     Cloth.  pages.     Mailing  price,        cents;  for 

introduction,       cents. 

rpHE  book  is  intended  to  meet  the  requirements  of  students  pre- 
paring  to   take   the  college  entrance  examinations,  and   to 
supply  a  convenient  edition  for  general  use. 

Biography.       Phillips  Exeter  Lectures. 

By  Rev.  PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  D.D.    12mo.    Paper.    30  pages.    Mailing 
price,  12  cents ;  for  introduction,  10  cents. 


HIGHER   ENGLISH. 


13 


The  Art  of  Poetry : 

The  Poetical  Treatises  of  Horace,  Vida,  and  Boileau,  with  the  trans- 
lations by  Howes,  Pitt,  and  Soame. 

Edited  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth.  lviii  +  303  pages.  Mailing 
price,  $1.25;  for  introduction,  $1.12. 


Bliss  Perry.  Prof,  of  English, 
Princeton  College:  The  fullness  and 
accuracy  of  the  references  in  the 
notes  is  a  testimony  to  his  patience 


as  well  as  liis  scholarship.  ...  I 
wish  to  express  my  admiration  of 
such  faithful  and  competent  edit- 
ing. 


Shelley's  Defense  of  Poetry. 


Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  ALBKRT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of 
English  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth,  xxvi  +  86  pages.  Price 
by  mail,  GO  cents;  for  introduction,  50  cents. 


John  F.  Genung,  Prof,  of  Rhetoric, 
Amherst  College:  By  his  excellent 
editions  of  these  three  works,  Pro- 
fessor Cook  is  doing  invaluable 
service  for  the  study  of  poetry.  The 
works  themselves,  written  by  men 
who  were  masters  alike  of  poetry 
and  prose,  are  standard  as  litera- 


ture; and  in  the  introduction  and 
notes,  which  evince  in  every  part  the 
thorough  and  sympathetic  scholar, 
as  also  in  the  beautiful  form  given 
to  the  books  by  the  printer  and 
binder,  the  student  has  all  the  help 
to  the  reading  of  them  that  he  can 
desire. 


Cardinal  Newman's  Essay  on  Poetry. 

With  reference  to  Aristotle's  Poetics.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of  English  in  Yale  University. 
8vo.  Limp  cloth,  x  +  «#>  pages.  Mailing  price,  35  cents;  for  intro- 
duction, 30  cents. 

Addi 'son's  Criticisms  on  Paradise  Lost. 

Edited  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature  in  Yale  University.  12mo.  Cloth,  xxvi +  200  pages. 
Mailing  price,  $1.10;  for  introduction,  $1.00. 

V.  D.  Scudder,  Instructor  in  Eng-    be  welcome  as  an  addition  to  our 

lish  Literature,  Wcllesley  College :  It    store  of  text-books, 
seems  to  me  admirably  edited  and  to 

"What  is  Poetry  ?  "     Leigh  Hunt's  Answer  to 

the  Question,  including  Remarks  on  Versification. 
Edited  by  ALBERT  S.  COOK,  Professor  of  the  English  Language  and 
Literature  in  Yale  University.      12mo.     Cloth.     104  pages.     Mailing 
price,  00  cents;  for  introduction,  50  cents. 


Bliss  Perry,  College  of  New  Jer- 
sey, Princeton,  N.J. :  Professor 
Cook's  beautiful  little  book  will 


prove  to  the  teacher  one  of  the  most 
useful  volumes  in  the  series  it  repre- 
sents. 


14  HIGHB  t    ENGLISH. 

The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Rorntntit,  Moue- 

ment. 

A  Study  in  Eighteenth  Cen  ury  Literature.  By  WILLIAM  LYON 
PHELPS,  Ph.D.,"  Instructor  ii  English  Literature",  Yale  University. 
12mo.  Cloth,  viii  +  192  page  ,  Mailing  price,  -SI.  10;  for  introduc- 
tion, $1.00. 


book  is  a  study  of  tl  -  ^ernis  of  English  Romanticism 
between  1725  and  1765.  N>>  other  work  in  this  field  has 
ever  been  published,  hence  the  rt^'i'to  v<?iven  here  are  all  the  fruit 
of  first-hand  investigation.  The  h~>olr  discusses,  with  abundant 
references  and  illustrations,  the  various  causes  that  brought  about 
the  transition  of  taste  from  Classicism  te  Romanticism  —  such  as 
the  Spenserian  revival,  the  influence  of  Milton's  minor  poetry,  the 
love  of  mediaeval  life,  the  revival  of  ballad  literature,  the  study  of 
Northern  mythology,  etc.  It  is  believed  that  this  book  is  a  con- 
tribution to  our  knowledge  of  English  literary  history  ;  and  it 
will  be  especially  valuable  to  advanced  classes  of  students  who 
are  interested  in  the  development  of  literature. 


Archibald  MacMechan,  Professor 
of  English,  Malhotixie  College,  Hal- 
ifax, N.S. :  Tt  is  a  valuable  contri- 
bution to  the  history  of  English 
literature  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

Barrett    Wendell,    Professor   of 


English,  Harvard  University:  Alf 
along  I  have  thought  it  among  the 
most  scholarly  and  suggestive  hooks 
of  literary  history.  ...  It  is  cer- 
tainly based  on  an  amount  of  orig- 
inal study  by  no  means  usual. 


Studies  in  the  Evolution  of  English  Criticism. 

By  LAURA  JOHNSON  WYLIE,  Graduate  Student  of  English  in  Yale 
University.     12mo.     Cloth.  pages.     Mailing  price,  $ 

for  introduction,  $ 

fTMIE  critical  principles  of  Dryden  and  Coleridge,  and  the  con- 
ditions on  which  the  evolution  of  their  opposite  theories 
depended,  are  the  subjects  chiefly  discussed  in  this  book.  The 
classical  spirit  is  first  traced  from  its  beginnings  in  the  sixteenth 
century  to  its  adequate  expression  by  Dryden ;  the  preparation 
for  a  more  philosophic  criticism  is  then  sought  in  the  widening 
sympathy  and  knowledge  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  and,  finally, 
Coleridge's  criticism  is  considered  as  representing  the  reaction 
against  the  philosophy  of  the  preceding  school. 


HIGHER    ENGLISH. 


15 


A  Primer  of  English  Verse. 

By  HIRAM  CORSON,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Cornell  Univer- 
sity, llimo.  Cloth,  iv  +  232  pages.  By  mail,  .f  1.10;  for  introduction, 
$1.00. 

rpHE  leading  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  introduce  the  student 
L  to  the  (esthetic  and  organic  character  of  English  Verse  —  to 
cultivate  his  susceptibility  to  verse  as  an  inseparable  part  of  poetic 
expression.  To  this  end,  the  various  effects  provided  for  by  the 
poet,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously  on  his  part,  are  given  for 
the  student  to  practice  upon,  until  those  effects  come  out  distinctly 
to  his  feelings. 


J.  H.  Gilmore,  Prof,  of  English, 
University  of  Rochester:  It  gives  a 
thoroughly  adequate  discussion  of 
the  principal  forms  of  English  verse. 

The  University  Magazine,  New 
York:  Professor  Corson  has  given 
us  a  most  interesting  and  thorough 
treatise  on  the  characteristics  and 


uses  of  English  metres.  He  dis- 
cusses the  force  and  effects  of  vari- 
ous metres,  giving  examples  of  usage 
from  various  poets.  The  hook  will 
he  of  great  use  to  both  the  critical 
student  and  to  those  who  recognize 
that  poetry,  like  music,  is  constructed 
on  scientific  and  precise  principles. 


Analytics  of  Literature. 


/^\  ^"^l 


A  Manual  for  the  Objective  Study  of  English  Prose  and  Poetry.  By 
L  A.  SHERMAN,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  the  University  of 
Nebraska.  12mo.  Cloth.  xx  + 4(58  pages.  Mailing  price,  fl. 40;  f< 

(introduction,  $1.25. 
rpHIS  book  was  written  to  embody  a  new  system  of  teaching 
"  literature  that  has  been  tried  with  great  success.  The  chief 
features  of  the  system  are  the  recognition  of  elements,  and  insuring 
an  experience  of  each,  on  the  part  of  the  learner,  according  to  the 
laboratory  plan.  The  principal  stages  in  the  evolution  of  form 
in  literature  are  made  especial  subjects  of  study. 


Edwin  M.  Hopkins,  Instructor  of 
English,  University  of  Kansas:  I 
am  delighted  with  the  fruitful  and 
suggestive  way  in  which  he  has 
treated  the  subject. 

Bliss  Perry,  College  of  New  Jer- 
sey, Princeton,  N.J. :  I  have  found 


it  an  extremely  suggestive  book.  .  . 
It  has  a  great  deal  of  originality  and 
earnestness. 

Daniel  J.  Dorchester,  Jr.,  Prof,  of 
Rhetoric  aiifl  English  L'deratw? , 
Boston  University :  It  is  a  very  use- 
ful book.  I  shall  recommend  it. 


ts^^^^r- 


670  647     ™ 


v  tf  «.  v 


